


Where We Are Found (When We Are Hiding)

by allthekingsmen (anglophileprussian)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Comic Book References, Deaf Clint Barton, Inhumans (Marvel), M/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:03:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anglophileprussian/pseuds/allthekingsmen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is left looking through the ruins of SHIELD and the Triskellion for his best friend. What he finds reminds him that there are consequences to all of their actions. Even ones made more than 70 years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older fic of mine, written last November if you can believe it. It was mostly based on my desire to show the actual consequences to the agents and the city of DC after the destruction of the Triskellion. It kind of erupted from there. 
> 
> Not beta-ed, unless someone is interested in helping me out on this.

DC is different than New York: the buildings are lighter, so the rubble stands out like pox marks on the clean streets. But the glancing looks are familiar – eyes glide over the destruction because they don’t want to remember what was there.

Steve had started to like DC, towards the end. It was cleaner, more deceptive, than the city he’d grown up in. Everything was dressed to impress, and keep you from looking in too deeply. It made his skin crawl a little, but it’d been easy to blend into a city full of people putting on a show. That, at least, hasn’t changed since the attack.

Sharon – he’s repeated the name to himself a dozen times so he doesn’t make a mistake – has agreed to meet him at the place of his choosing, so he picks a Starbucks he remembers, not too far from his old apartment. He’d spent many hours sketching the people walking across the Circle on their way to work, and as he sits waiting, he thinks he sees some of those same people again. He’s the only thing that’s changed.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes there, Captain.”

He gives her his most polite smile, as though he hadn’t seen her walk in, and pulls his arm back from where his shield usually was. This was civilian life, or however close it was to one. Friends met friends for coffee. She sat down with hers without invitation.

“It’s good to see you,” he told her. It is the truth: her hair is pulled up, and her clothes are smarter than he’s ever seen on her, but she’s smiling. He tries to smile back.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you in town for a while.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be here,” he admitted. He shifted back in his seat. “But I was actually going to ask you a favor.”

If she minds the lack of small talk, her expression does not reveal anything. She only tilts her head politely. “You know that I’m no longer a SHIELD agent.' She pauses for emphasis, then adds "but I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Thank you Sharon. That means a lot. Not a lot of people left to trust anymore.”

He means it to be a one-off comment, until he sees the way that her expression sharpens. She stiffens in her chair, and takes up her coffee again to disguise the movement. When she’s hidden whatever emotion she was struggling with, she asks him, serious, “Do you trust me?”

“Of course. You’ve given me no reason not to.”

Admittedly, the idea of not trusting Sharon Carter had never occurred to him. As soon as Tony had told him about former Commander Wraith, his first instinct had been to get in contact with Sharon to ask her for help. His trust in her had seemed natural, but it dawns on him that perhaps he’d been too hasty, considering. Of course, it is already too late to try to go on his own.

As if reading his thoughts, she warns him, “You shouldn’t be so trusting in the future, Captain. It’s going to get you into trouble.”

“It’s Steve,” he insists.

“Steve, then. This isn’t a city for trust anymore.”

“So I’ve heard. Stark told me about Commander Wraith.”

She turned to face out the window. “It was a real loss to all of us. From the European Command, of all places. Asshole was recommended by Fury himself to-“, she breaks off. “Anyways. We had no idea. Even after the trial, none of us will really know how far his influence spread. It’s a step back.”

“You talk as if you’re still part of SHIELD,” he observes. “I thought you moved to the CIA.”

“No one really leaves SHIELD, Steve. And it’s never really gone.” She sounds amused that he’d ever even considered the idea.

“We were supposed to put down SHIELD for good this time. Hydra had grown too powerful for us to-“

“Hydra is everywhere, Steve. You can’t be so naïve that you think you destroyed it by taking down those hellicarriers, can you? Because for the rest of us, this is far from over.” For the first time, she seems genuinely angry with him. “You left us to clean up this mess, and this city-… well, I don’t know if it’ll ever recover.”

There is no end to the feeling that he is in far over his head. Since arriving in the twenty-first century, he was always feeling like he was out of touch; unable to understand people talking the same language as him. And while the war had felt so straight forward, he couldn’t seem to get the modern world right. These, he thinks, were the repercussions his mother had always told him about.

“I don’t think my getting involved would really help anymore.”

“No,” she admits. “But you saved millions of lives from those hellicarriers. We’re all thankful for that. So what can I do for you, before I start chewing you out again?”

“This guy, Wraith; the one with connections to Hydra. I need to know how he got the Winter Soldier into DC, and where he came from.”

She does not seem surprised by his request. Perhaps everyone knows about him now, and who the Winter Soldier really is. Or, he concedes, he's becoming paranoid. She is probably just well trained. “I might not know the answers to your question, but I can put you into contact with some of the people who might. Come with me.”

 

Shanon introduces him to a young man, and a calm woman, before leaving in a hurry to do what she calls ‘damage control’. His guests are introduced as Freddie, and Quartermain respectively.

“It’s an honor to meet you in person, Captain,” Quartermain tells him, extending her hand. She’d boldly taken the seat across from him while Freddie had hesitated in the doorway. He still seems unsettled to be sitting diagonally to Steve, or to be in his hotel room in general, but his hand’s shaking has lessened to a slight tremor at least. It never surprises Steve how his presence can manage to make people so uncomfortable.

“Thank you both for coming. Sharon said that you two might be able to help me out.”

Quartermain smiles. It reminds him of the smiles Natasha gives to civilians and idiots.“It depends on what you need.”

“Commander Wraith just stepped down from his position in the Department of Defense, after accusations of a strong connections to Hydra.”

Quaternmain looks straight at him, unapologetic and matter of fact. “Sources say he might have been a senior member. It’s impossible to imagine what the consequences will be, or how far his influence spread, but hearings and interviews have been going on all week to determine who else is involved. They may have to fire his entire office.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, impressed. “You know a lot.”

“While the senior staff can’t be trusted, most of the interns are too new to be dangerous. And they’re very used to doing work for little compensation. Many are more than willing to help.”

“And what do you do with that information?”

Quartermain begins to laugh, startling Steve and Freddie into staring at her until she quiets. “Terribly sorry. I understand your concern, but is only intelligence gathering. This,” she gestures to herself and Freddie, “is nothing like SHIELD. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Then what is it for?”

“This is to survive, Captain Rogers.” Her tone shifts back to its previous calm. “This city has changed since you left it, and the rest of us have been struggling along ever since. We have no one to trust but ourselves; you have to stay informed if you want to stay alive.”

Freddie seems to decide that it is his time to join the conversation, leaving his gazing out the window to look somberly at the two of them. “And we want to help people.”

“There were a lot of people left in the cold when SHIELD’s information got dumped. A lot of covers were lost, and a lot of people have already died because they were stuck in a mission with no way out,” Quartermain explains. “We’re the lucky ones in that sense.”

Freddie adds, “We’ve been looking for former agents who’ve survived, and helping them get to safety and maybe, eventually, back home. Its slow goings but…” he shrugs slightly. “It’s what we do.”

The feeling of guilt that he’s become so familiar with, increasing since he’d come back into the city, burns at his insides. The acceptance without blame feels like a slap to his pride – whatever ego he might get when he thinks he’s done the right thing fades at their calm faces. He says, finally, “You were SHIELD agents then?”

“I was on assignment in New York during the attack here. Freddie here, on the other hand, was one of the launch personnel saved by Agent Carter.”

“I’m glad you made it out safely. And I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you, that I can’t-“

Quartermain cuts him off, unimpressed. “Don’t be stupid. You’re strong, but not strong enough to carry everyone out of that building. You were where you needed to be. SHIELD agents know the dangers of the job.”

“Can we help you now?” Freddie asks. His hand shakes as he ruffles his hair away from his face. He clearly does not enjoy the topic. “You want Wraith?”

“I need to know how he got the Winter Soldier into DC. His files last have him in Europe, and our intel has Wraith as the most likely candidate for bringing him over. I need to find out what he knows.”

Freddie already has his phone out, typing away faster than Steve has ever managed. He doesn’t even look up to speak. “You might be in luck. Wraith has his third hearing tomorrow before the Senate. There’s a small window until he disappears to wherever they’ve been keeping Hydra prisoners.”

Quartermain regards him with the piercing look Steve had come to expect from SHIELD agents. “What is your interest in the Winter Soldier?”

Steve smiles the same smile he gives to everyone who’s asked why he’s looking. “I’m trying to find a friend. He needs my help.” That, for now, will be enough. 

 

The ruins of the Triskellion hardly needed to be fenced off. No one has ever tried to get inside.

The bottom floors were mostly intact, if less than structurally sound. The East wing had suffered the least in the battle, where the upper levels had fallen to the side. There, the computers sat untouched and the cabinets of files stretched the walls. Everything of value was long gone.

The Captain, despite her best efforts, couldn’t help the shivers of fear when crossing into what remained of the large atrium. She had vague memories of the large glass windows and statue in the middle, but it blended in with the wall of windows of the recruiting office in Falls Church from last year. It, and the image of a blank, black sky, hovered in her mind as she climbed over rubble.

When she tried them, the computers would only blink colored lights at her, which was to be expected. And the scattered pens and rolling chairs weren’t surprising either, though they made it difficult to navigate in the dark. The only surprise, really, was how many of the paper files had been left behind. With the information dump, perhaps everyone had assumed that everything worth having had already been revealed. But the terraced levels, accessible when she climbed up on top of the standing cabinets, had whole drawers still full of now-useless files about California safe houses and legal documents.

The memories, confusing as they are for her to understand, lead her to an office near the corner, surrounded by the remains of its glass walls. It is cold and windy inside because the window has been blown out as well, and it has started to rain. While the desk has been tipped to one side, like something large had brushed through in a hurry, she can right it again, to get at the drawers. She’s only slightly surprised when the weight hardly creates a strain - she can hardly feel it.

These files, she suspects, were never entered into any computer. There are only four names, and some words she doesn’t understand, or even recognize. She cannot help opening the one with her name on it, in a list with 3 others. Inside, there was only one phrase she can really understand:

“…however, the treatment on Captain Carol Danvers appears to be a success. Updates to follow.”


	2. Chapter 2

After the security tape from the Smithsonian, Bucky had disappeared. Tony had apologized in that brash, insensitive way that Steve was beginning to recognize as typical of the genius, but there was nothing to be done. For someone who hadn’t spent a lot of time in this century, Bucky seemed to know how to stay out of sight.

It had been Sam who had suggested talking to Sharon. Natasha had disappeared, her own unfinished business to handle, but he and Sam had headed over to New York City to lay low for a while. Although no one was actively looking for him anymore, the mess with SHIELD had spread far beyond Washington DC to New York and Chicago and, soon, all around the world. He still felt sick whenever he saw another news report of generals and congressmen hunting down SHIELD agents and Hydra bases with equal fervor. With the hellicarriers in the sky, it had seemed like an easy decision, but he was used to those kinds of easy decisions having too many consequences. So New York, and the relative protection it could give them, it had been.

Sam had quickly gotten sick of what he called Steve’s ‘moping’. Although he had enjoyed catching up on some of the films of the last 50 years and learning about the city, Steve had eventually admitted that he was more than done with their rest and was ready to go out and start looking for Bucky. As soon as he was allowed to by his doctors, he got a call from Tony. He said that he’d been looking through all of the new SHIELD data and had stumbled upon it. But the lead fell through, and Steve and Sam had to go to DC again to start the search for themselves.

He hadn’t expected Quartermain or Freddie, but he hadn’t spent a whole lot of time thinking about what was left of SHIELD since the agency’s fall. Seeing the building destroyed had left him thinking that the matter was closed, but there had been a lot of threads still out there, apparently. Lots of metaphorical pieces to pick up.

Although Sam had agreed to let him meet with Sharon by himself, Steve knew that there was no way he would let him go off to talk to Wraith without him. A few texts later, and Sam was waiting for him outside of the Metro, arms crossed and expression unimpressed.

“I’m guessing things went well.”

“Sharon had a few contacts left. Apparently, there are still a lot of SHIELD agents out there.”

Sam snorted, amused by Steve’s surprise. “Organization’s been around for almost 100 years. Those things don’t go down easy.”

“Apparently Wraith’s being held here while he’s on trial,” Steve gestured to the prison before them. “Different than he’s used to, I imagine.”

“Yeah, less room service. How do you plan on getting us in there?”

Steve lifted an eyebrow and smirked. “Through the front door, of course.”

Although he hasn’t yet managed to become comfortable with it, he’s very aware of how people react to him now. Back in the army, any stare’s he’d gotten had come from soldier’s who’d heard of the Howling Commandos, and all they’d done. Now, they seem to worship him for some idea they think he stands for. It is enough to convince one of the guards that he should be allowed to visit the prisoner with little more than a vague allusion to having met him in the past.

“Didn’t think you were the type to use your fame like that,” Sam says when she leaves them. He has that tone of voice he gets that sounds like he’s understanding something. It’s rarely clear what it is that he understands.

“After the Battle of New York, I was invited to some party because the secretary of defense wanted to give me a medal. If I’d gone, I might have met Wraith. So it’s only half a lie.”

“Right. Do you know what you’re going to say?”

“Nah,” Steve pushes the door open at the sound of the lock disengaging. “I’ll improvise.”

Wraith looks frightened to see him. His hands are clenched on the table, and his eyes snap towards Steve, then face forward, then back again. For a high ranking Hydra member, he seemed to have not expected anything like prison, and his face shows sign of exhaustion. Sam stands by the door, while Steve takes the seat across from Wraith.

“I wasn’t expecting a visit from Captain America,” Wraith says. His voice sounds strong, despite his nerves, and he looks Steve in the eye as he speaks. “I’m honored.”

“I have a few questions for you.”

It's not what he was expecting. “Why should I tell you anything? What’s in it for me?”

“Maybe you should be worried about what happens if you don’t answer.”

Wraith laughs. “Captain America is threatening me? Am I supposed to believe this?”

Steve shrugs, and straightens in his chair. He lets the room go silent, except for distant sound of the clock. He is half expecting Sam to pull him aside and ask what he thinks he’s doing, but when nothing happens, he continues. “I understand that you were in charge of the transport of the Winter Soldier. How did you do it?”

It's almost reassuring, how confused the man is. It doesn't seem like Hydra knew about his connection to their assassin. “The Soldier?”

“Yes. How did you bring him to DC?”

Wraith blew out a long breath. “The usual way. There was a cargo ship coming into New York about a week before our attack. We just put him in one of those storage containers, and then shipped it down the DC.”

“Do you know where he was coming from?”

“From? I don’t know. I think they were using it in Afghanistan in the 90s, but I hadn’t heard much of it since then. The ship was coming from Algeria, I think.”

“You had a base in Algeria?”

“We have bases everywhere, Captain.”

“Do you know where they were keeping him here? Was he,” Steve took a breath. It was important that he not put Bucky in any further danger. “Was he in cryofreeze when he arrived?”

"Of course."

"Do you know how long he'd been under for?"

“I don’t know why you keep calling him ‘he’, Captain,” Wraith laughed. “That thing is no ‘he’. You met him, right? Well, I had the pleasure of meeting the Soldier once. Back in ’92, when we were in negotiations with the former Soviet Union. They led the soldier in, and it sat in a chair just like this one. Pierce, he kneeled down before this thing and asked it whether it was ready to protect the American people from themselves. And that thing,” Wraith leaned forward eagerly, “it looked up with thing black nothing in its eyes, and said ‘yes’. The next day, it killed the Soviet agents who brought him to us, and stepped back into that freezer like nothing had happened. Just walked right in.”

The room was silent. Steve was silent because the beating of his heart was so loud he couldn’t hear over it. Wraith leaned back in his chair again, as far as the chains would let him go, and looked thoughtfully off to the side. He was aware of how uncomfortable he was making Steve. 

“We always wondered how they did it."

“He has a name,” Steve says quietly. His trembling hard now.

“Steve." It's like a reminder of who he is supposed to be. 

Wraith looks back at him, glances between Steve and Sam. “What?”

Steve stands up, pushing the chair back despite the bolts securing it to the floor. Sam steps forward to try to hold him steady, but Steve steps towards the wall and looks at it for a moment. Tries to stop seeing the image of Bucky, the blankness he’s seen.

“Weapons don’t have names, Captain,” Wraith says; a reminder.

“People do. You just took that name, the person, from him. That was you.”

“Wait, hold up. I never did anything-“

“I think we’re done here,” Sam interjects. He barely glances at Wraith but looks imploringly at Steve. Pulls him away from the wall. “Do you know where they took him? Because if you don’t, we’re done.” His tone is final.

“There was a bank. That’s all I know. They were keeping it in the vault.”

“Great. Now you can go to Hell with the rest of them, because we are done here. Let’s go Cap.”

Steve lets himself be lead out of the prison, hardly seeing anything. Talking to Hydra was a mistake.

 

“You know, you said that you’re ready for this.”

Sam had bought a soda from a vending machine on the way out, taking his time so that Steve could walk ahead alone. They took a seat on a bench in the nearby park, where Steve can stare blankly at the people passing and Sam can take loud sips of his drink.

“I was lying.”

“So what now?”

Steve resisted the urge to put rub his face in aggravation. Frustration is something he’s become more and more accustomed to in this world, whenever he was slow to understand something new. But the anger is tinged with disappointment in himself. It was a common feeling when he was smaller; whenever he had to step outside of a dance hall because the smoke was too much, or when he’d fallen too hard and couldn’t get back up again, had to wait to be saved. Nowadays, he could feel it the most when he thought about Bucky.

“I have to be ready. He’s been out too long, and I know that he’s hurt and-.” He does not need Sam to stop him. “I need this.”

“I know, and that’s why I’m here. But you have to talk to me if I’m going to help.”

“We called off the search. He was still out there, and I stopped looking.” He hardly knows whether he’s talking about the past or the present anymore. 

“You can’t start blaming yourself for that. He wouldn’t blame you for that.”

“Well maybe he should.” Steve tipped his head back and stared up towards the sky, a hazy gray that reminded him of the weather in England. There was never much sun there.

“What are you hoping we’re gonna find? Because your friend might not be there anymore. You’ve seen what they turned him into.”

“The truth,” Steve said. “I want the truth, for the both of us.”

“Well, we can find the truth. No promises it’ll be good though.”

He already had the feeling that he wasn’t going to like any of it. What they turned him into though: Steve was not ready to tell Sam his suspicions about that.

“Where should we go now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, finishing off his drink and tossing into the trashcan. “A ‘bank’ isn’t much of a lead.”

“Then it’s back to Sharon’s friends.”

 

“I hope you’ve already met with Wraith,” Quartermain begins, sitting down in front of them. Steve had chosen to meet her in the same Starbucks where he’d spoken to Sharon because it was as close as he had to comfortable in the city. The baristas remember his order, and one of them likes to flirt with Sam as he makes their drinks. It's nice.

“What do you mean?” Sam asks.

“I’m guessing you haven’t seen the news then.”

She gave them a moment, which Steve used to pull out his phone and check CNN. The largest headline on the page declared Wraith dead; murdered in his sleep.

“I’m guessing this isn’t your handiwork.” she added.

“No. Not really our style.” Sam scrolls through the story on his own phone, eyebrows raising. “I can guess who it was though.”

“You think the Winter Soldier is attacking Hydra agents?” Quartermain asks, tone not betraying how much she knows. Although he wants to trust her, Steve keeps to his promise to Sharon and remains vague.

“We have no way of knowing what he’s thinking right now. But this makes it seem like he’s not exactly happy with them right now.”

“Are you still interested in finding how he was brought into the city?”

“Less interested in that,” Sam admits, “than trying to predict where he’s going to be next. And find out who is left that knows something about him.”

“You’ll have a hard time with that. Half the city knows about him.”

“If he’s been here the whole time, then he must be in hiding somewhere. And he’s probably a lot harder to spot when he’s not trying to blow people up. Just saying,” Sam half apologizes as Steve glares.

“Do you have any idea how he got into the prison?”

“He’s been doing this for a long time.” A lot longer than they realize, Steve refrains from adding.

“So we need to find his next target then.”

Sam puts his drink down. “He probably saw Wraith on TV somewhere, maybe even recognized him somehow. If I were him, I’d be looking for answers right now.”

“Have any other high ranking Hydra members been found lately?”

Quartermain seemed to think about it for a moment. “A few have come up here and there, but not anyone high ranking enough to have been involved with the Winter Soldier. I doubt the lower level members can tell us anything.”

“Then we have nothing.”

“Well, no. There’s the obvious.” Sam looks between Steve and Quartermain, waiting for them to catch on. “You want to learn about Hydra, where’s the first place you look.”

“SHIELD,” Quartermain mutters, “Do you really think there’s anything left?”

“The Triskelion was a big building. And it wouldn’t put it past SHIELD to have a whole lot hidden in there somewhere.”

“But the data leaks-”

“He’s got a point," Steve interrupts, "If someone in SHIELD wanted to keep a secret, they wouldn’t log it into their files.”

“And the Winter Soldier is one hell of a secret. Christ.” For the first time, Quartermain looks a bit sick and Steve sympathizes. She devoted her whole life to an organization only to have to watch it destroyed. It can’t be pleasant to be reminded of what had been going on behind their backs. If he thought she would appreciate it, he would try to offer some kind of sympathy. But recognizing it would be unappreciated, he pretends he doesn’t see her weariness.

“I didn’t think we’d be going back so soon,” Sam says, calmer than Steve is feeling. Either the idea of revisiting the site really doesn’t bother him, or he’s doing a fine job of hiding it. Steve cannot manage the same, so he makes an agreeing noise and dreads the coming night.

 

Sam walks slowly on purpose: Steve can sense him getting and further behind, walking as slow as he can.

“Why won’t we slow down a second?” Sam says, almost calling down the block. He’s dawdled in front of a bookstore, and seems to be reading the titles

Grudgingly, Steve slows and turns back, meeting him in front of the display. He hadn’t been in DC very long, but he recognizes the name of the store, and watches through the window, where all of the people are milling around inside. He cannot remember the last time he went out just to buy a book.

“Have you considered that you’re so obsessed with looking for Barnes because it lets you avoid thinking about what you’re going to do next?”

Sam, leaning against the window, is giving him the friendly look he gives the people who come to his group sessions. It makes it hard to not be frustrated with him.

“What makes you say that?”

“You said it yourself, back when we first met: you have no idea what to do with yourself anymore. I mean, what are you going to do when you find Barnes?”

“It depends.”

“Really? Or you have no clue.”

“It depends,” Steve repeats, “On what he’s like when we find him.”

“I get it, you know. Your city’s changed, your girl’s now 90 and in a home, and all of your old friends are long gone. I get why finding your friend is important to you.”

“I didn’t leave him in 1943, and I’m sure as hell not going to leave him now.”

Sam starts walking down the street again, a little faster than before. “You’re not really big on letting things go, are you?”

“My mother always told me that I was too good at holding a grudge.”

Sam laughs. “I promise not to tell everyone that Captain America holds a grudge. Now how about we find a place to eat and force you to take a break.”

 

He hates having to wait. Sam had made him promise to wait for him to go to the Triskelion with him, so he has returned to his hotel room. There, his go bag is sitting on his bed, and the room promises nothing except a few hours of quality time with his own thoughts.

After an hour of watching people walk past his window, he leaves the hotel and goes walking towards his old apartment near Dupont Circle. For a few moments, he is able to enjoy the familiar sights of what he had briefly called his ‘neighborhood’. He never got the point of recognizing many of the people he passed by on the way to the Triskelion, but the windows feel friendly and familiar. There’s a tea house he remembers, and stops into if only so he can hold a cup of tea in his hands, and taste the cake he remembers.

A few blocks later, he is standing outside of his apartment. It has gotten dark already, but the circle is brightly lit and he can see his apartment from the street. He’s about to move away, when he remembers what Sam told him.

Climbing the side of a building isn’t the strangest thing he’s had to do, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling slightly ridiculous. When he passes on the side of the windows to a floor of offices he distinctly remembers running through, he feels like he probably should have gotten around to apologizing to them at some point. One of the walls still looks dented.

Luckily, DC buildings aren’t allowed to be built very tall, so getting to the roof isn’t too difficult, even in jeans. It’s split-level, and he can remember running through the door unto the lower level after Bucky. It’s amazing, in hindsight, that he hadn’t recognized Bucky from the very beginning. He can remember clearly seeing the Soldier catch his shield: that stance alone should have told him. There has been no one else who knows how to handle his shield: no one else has ever used it except for him and Bucky.

There’s a bag on the edge of the roof that faces his old apartment. Coming over to it, he can see signs that it has been left recently, perhaps within the last few hours. Bucky had been here – there is a small drop of blood on a raised bump in the concrete, like someone had scratched themselves by accident. In the bag, there is only a completely filthy sweater, absolutely caked in dirt, and a knife. It was as if he’d gotten the bag to make himself feel like he had something of his own to bring with him.

Steve sits down on the edge of the roof, feet dangling over the edge, right where Bucky was when he had been watching his apartment. He takes out the small tea cake he’d bought earlier from his pocket, and eats it slowly, reminding himself of sitting on the fire escape back in New York with Bucky knocking their knees together, sharing the desserts their mothers had given them and watching the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a DC resident, the geography and locations are accurate. No inexplicable alleyways in the city from here. The dream is to write a story where everything is exactly the same as it was in the film, except it includes the actual inexplicable snow storm that happened during the April as the story was supposedly taking place. 
> 
> No beta still, so all mistakes are mine. The tea cake he's eating is very good


	3. Chapter 3

The infiltration of the Triskelion is a lot easier the second time.

He does not like seeing the remains of the building, if only because it reminds him of many others from his campaign in Europe. There was a large warehouse once, the only time that they traveled to North Africa. They’d been told that there was an allied outpost there; a small base that was being used as a stopping point for fighter pilots on the Western front. But when they’d arrived, the only thing that had been left were the bodies and the left side wall of the building. Here, there are photographs pinned to the fence and candles scattered on the ground.

Sam lets Steve go in first, climbing the fence behind him and trailing behind as they enter. Despite the piles of debris, it is still recognizable: the far wall still had part of the memorial standing and he walks towards it, as he often did when he’d visited SHIELD headquarters. The right side – more recent – where Phil Coulson’s name is has fallen, hit by a falling television monitor. The left, which went back to World War II, remained intact, and he ran his name over Bucky’s name, like he always did. The familiar tightening, shortening of breath came with a new feeling of horror, at the thought of his friend’s death. After all, wasn’t that what he really wanted to find out? Did he really die out there, on the Eastern front?

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

He has no idea how he didn’t hear someone coming up beside him. His shield is raised in an instant, and turns towards the voice, putting his back to the plaques. With his improved sight, he can see clearly see a woman, around his age, with a gun aimed at him. Blonde and rather tall, she is dressed like a civilian. 

“You don’t want to do that,” he tells her, now hearing the quiet steps of Sam coming from the far side of the room, sneaking up behind her. “Please put the gun down.”

Her expression is calm, relatively unsurprised. Whatever reason she has for coming to the Triskelion, she doesn’t seem surprised to find she’s no longer alone. Her attention turns to his shield, although her gun is aimed at his head.

“Are you Captain America?” Her tone implies that it is not entirely impossible.

“Yes. Steve Rogers. What are you doing here?”

But she doesn’t answer. She’s noticed what he’s standing in front of, and is staring at it, finally surprised. He moves to cover it, not even sure of what he’s trying to hide.

“You are. You’re actually Captain America. What are you doing here?”

“I asked first.”

“My name is Carol. Captain Carol Danvers, of the US Air Force.”

“What does the Air Force want with the SHIELD headquarters?” Sam asks from right behind her.

In an instant, Danvers turns around to face him, her free hand extended and igniting into a brightly colored flare of light, wavering a few inches in front of his face. At once, Sam backs up and holds his hands up in surrender.

“Is he a friend?” she asks Steve, frowning.

“I am. Sam Wilson. I was in the Air Force too. So can you please put the glowing hands away…”

She drops both hands, dropping the gun to the ground but letting whatever light she had in her hand stay next to her leg. “What are you two trying to do here? Who do you work for?”

“We don’t work for anyone. We’re looking for a friend.”

A strange emotion crosses her face that Steve cannot identify fast enough, before she smirks.  
“Well I’m looking for some answers of my own. You don’t happen to know anything about the Marvels, do you?”

“No… but SHIELD didn’t tell me all that much.”

“No kidding. SHIELD’s literally a crater in the ground and it’s still got enough secrets to fill-“ she gestured around them to the building that remained.

“Does it have anything to do with the fact that your hand is glowing?” Sam asks, pointing towards the hand still surrounded in light. “Because that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, if I knew what the hell was causing it.” She snorts. “I came to SHIELD a few months ago to take place in a special medical experiment. The first few days were pretty normal – testing, physicals, that kind of thing. But somewhere around the 5th day my memory just … disappears.”

“So you don’t know what they did?” Steve asks, incredulous. “They gave you some kind of drug to forget?”

“No idea. I woke up in the George Washington Hospital a few days after the attack on the Triskelion. The doctors told me that I’d been hurt in the fight on the bridge, but I remember signing up for the trial. So I came back here to see if there was anything I could find.”

“Show us.” He doesn’t think before he says it, but he feels the familiar pull towards someone who needs help. He’s never been able to resist it.

She shrugs, and starts moving towards a far hallway, mostly untouched by the destruction. 

 

“I thought we were here looking for Bucky?” Sam whispers, shooting a glance at Carol, who continues moving forward without sparing them a glance.

“She says that SHIELD was doing experiments on humans: how do we know that wasn’t some kind of Hydra plan? Giving former soldiers super powers is their basic M.O.”

“You think she’s got super powers? Because of the glowing hand thing?”

“Do you see those pieces of concrete leaning against the wall back there?” Steve points back towards where they’d come from.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think they fell like that.”

“You think she moved concrete? You’re out of your mind.”

As if in response to his incredulity, Danvers turned towards one of the larger piles blocking their way and jumped over it. Her initial leap bringing her up about 7 feet up, it seemed more like flying than anything else. Steve gives Sam his best ‘see!’ look.

“I got it. Super powers are officially a thing. Now help the weak ass guy get over that thing.”  
Steve pulled himself easily up the side, and offered Sam a hand to help him climb up to the top. Bellow them, Danvers stood off to the side, looking intently towards one of the upper floor balconies. Presumably, their destination.

“If SHIELD had the power to give people super powers, why are we only just hearing about it?”

“I don’t know. Those kinds of things don’t always go as planned,” he said, unable to help thinking of the Red Skull pulling off his face mask, and his own experience in the VitaRay chamber. “Something must have happened.”

“I think I found the files related to the Marvel project up there,” Danvers told them when they landed beside them, pointing up towards where she had been looking before. “I have these memories-, like pictures more than anything else, and they brought me here. I’ve been trying to understand the papers that they left, but I’m in a bit over my head. The GED didn’t exactly prepare me for this.”

This time she waits to help them up onto a file cabinet, still standing, and then over the upper balcony to one of the offices. As they pass, Sam gestures towards the writing on the door.

‘Agent Mar Vell’

It’s obvious that Carol has spent some time in there: files were spread out onto files in a half-circle on the floor, and several takeout coffee cups are lined up against one of the walls. As if without thought, she drops down, cross legged, onto the floor in front of her work and her hand lights up again. Sam and Steve sit down across from her.

“It’s nice of you guys to look at this for me. I know you’re probably busy, what with being … Captain America, and all.”

“You’ve peaked our interest.” Steve picks up a file and flicks it open. “How about you tell us about your glowing hand trick first.”

Carol leans to one side and looks at her hand. “It’s been doing this since I got out of the hospital. Scared me to death the first few times I couldn’t turn it off, but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it now. It’s some kind of energy… thing. Watch.”

She flicked her fingers, and the light sputtered off, and then with another flick it was on again. Then, raising her hand towards the far wall, she made a pushing motion with her hand, and the glow of light shot across the room and crashed into the wall with a popping sound, like lightning strikes.

“That is crazy.” Sam says, clearly impressed. “I wish I could do that.”

“I guess,” she shrugs. “The memory loss and lost time has made it lose a lot of its appeal to me. Plus that time I obliterated by shower curtain.” Although her tone is joking, Steve can see in the dark that her expression is troubled, and that she holds her hands away from her body, as though they could hurt her.

“Do you remember what kind of tests they said they’d be doing on you?”

“I don’t know if they ever told me. Or why I even signed up. I remember a man in a suit talking to me about something science-y, but it’s all fuzzy.”

Steve looks down at the folder he’s picked up; it’s labeled ‘Project Marvels’, like Carol had said. The first dozen pages are full of chemical formulas and what look to be arguments between the scientists scribbled in the margins, with every other word crossed out in black. Although it means nothing to him, he takes out his new phone and snaps pictures of it all in the hopes that it might mean something to Stark or Doctor Banner. The next few pages are written in English, at least, and seem to be talking about one of the other patients named ‘Joseph Conrad’ and ‘George Elliot’. Suspicious, he flips to another page and finds more names: ‘Mary Shelley’, ‘Raymond Chandler’ and ‘Evelyn Waugh’.

“These aren’t real people,” he says. “None of the people they talk about in this file are real, or at least their names aren’t. They’re using he names of famous authors.” He tosses the file onto the ground and picks up another. “’John Milton’, ‘Emmie Dickenson’, they’re all fake.”

For the first time since she’s begun speaking to them, Carol loses his expression of calm acceptance and glances between the two men, visibly frightened. “But my name is in here. And I’m a real person. Or, I’m fairly certain I’m a real person”

“You are, don't worry,” Sam soothes.

“This must be some kind of mistake. It’s gotta be a coincidence,” she grabs a file, knocking over a few of the others in her haste. At the same moment, there is a sound of a gunshot.

Instinctively, Steve turns to face it, shield coming up to protect him and Sam. Sam, of course, has moved in front of Carol, who steps to the side and puts up both of her hands, already glowing. The gunshot is followed by the sounds of boots and rubble being pushed to the side, like a group of people have suddenly sprung into action. The gunshots, louder now, remind Steve of the spray of cover fire.

“How about we get out of here?” Sam suggests. “Because I think someone is looking for us.”

“Or me.” Carol looks grimly at the two of them. “If I’m the only real member of the Marvels project, that is.”

“We’re all pretty popular right now,” Steve says, distractedly, because he’s thinking. The first gunshot came all the way from the atrium, and would be useless to anyone trying to take them by stealth. Unless someone’s gun misfired, it sounded more like a warning shot.

“Bucky’s been here the whole time,” he snaps, furious with himself for not realizing it at once. He’d gotten distracted looking into SHIELD, and Bucky had been in the other room the entire time. Probably saved their lives too.

“Bucky?” Carol asks, startled. “Your friend?”

“Yeah, we thought he might come by here, but we let our guards down. God damnit.”

“Calm down Steve. Your boy sounds fine out there. It’s us you should be worrying about.”

“We have to go help him.”

“Help him? Steve, we need to get out of here. There’s a whole lot of people out there looking for one of us, and I don’t think we’ll like what they do when they find us. We need to get going.”

“I’m not leaving Bucky. You two get out of here; I’m going in.”

He takes off running before Sam can say anything else, vaulting over the balcony and taking off over the pile of rocks, towards the atrium.

 

He knows the feeling of running into battle after Bucky. It has been a long time.

There is cover fire overhead as he rushes into the atrium, heading straight towards the largest group of men. Wearing all black tac suits, he doesn't recognize them. But it doesn't matter: they are firing at them, so he fights back. For the moments when he is fighting, knowing that Bucky is somewhere behind him, watching his back, he feels peace.

“Steve!”

Sam is not too far behind him, of course, and he bets that Sharon has followed as well. Sliding into a less aggressive attack, he switches his focus to survey the situation. Sharon has begun fighting with a combination of physical attacks and blasts of energy from her hands, which seem to stun their attackers. Sam appears into the fray and tries to get Steve's attention.

“Your boy’s escaping.”

“What?”

“Barnes. He’s getting away.”

“Damnit.” Steve looks towards to the entry way, and imagines that he can see a figure disappearing into the street. “We’re going to lose him.”

He hits the next man with a little more force than necessary, hopefully only knocking him against the far wall. When no one immediately steps up to attack him, he realizes that the fighting is over. Only one man remains conscious: squirming and panicked in Sam’s arms, a woman with a burn on her leg seems to be trying to convince Sam to let her free.

“I saved this one for you Cap.”

Steve nods and kneels in front of her, trying to remain merely serious. He hopes she can’t sense how frantic he feels; the need to follow Bucky trying to pull him out the door.

“Who do you work for?”

“I’m not telling you anything,” she insists. She too looks like she’s struggling not to panic. “I don’t know anything.”

Steve repeats it again. “Who do you work for?”

“No one.”

“So the other people with you are nobodies too? You guys start a club or something?” Sam asks dryly.

“No, I-. We. Please don’t hurt me,” she begs. “We weren’t going to kill you.”

“Just going to kidnap me and kill all my friends then.”

“Steve,” Sharon nudges his arm and gestures towards some of the fallen figures around them. “I think a few of them are going to start waking up soon. We need to move while we still can.”

“How did you find us?” he asks the woman, openly desperate now.

“Barnes said that they’ve been following you for a while,” Sam supplied. Steve resists the urge to demand to know what else he might have said, and keeps his attention on the woman.

“Why are you following me?”

The woman’s breath has become more of a sob, and she’s clutching her leg desperately.  
“We’re looking for the same thing. If anyone is going to be able to find the Winter Soldier, it’s you.”

“What do you want with him?”

“Same as you; we want to control him.”

The bile that rises in his throat makes him feel like he’s going to vomit at once, and without thinking he shakes her, hard enough to smack her head against the wall she’s been leaning on. It happens in an instant, before he can control himself, and as soon as he realizes what he’s done he drops her. She falls to the ground like a doll.

“Whoa, what the fuck Steve-“

“I can’t,” he mumbles and, jumping to his feet, he hurries into the back hallway again. His chest feel constricted in a way he has not felt for years, and he leans against a wall, heaving in loud breaths, like his body is as small and frail as he remembers.

 

“That didn’t go well.”

Sharon had volunteered to go down the street to find them a convenience store that was still open. As soon as they’d left the building and she was out of view, he collapsed onto a heap on the sidewalk. Sam, steady as ever, took a more sedate seat beside him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Alright then. Do you mind if I talk?”

Exhausted, Steve nods ‘no’ and drops his head into his lap, pressing his hands to his eyes. He can feel a migraine coming on, like the ones he used to get when he stayed out in the sun too long. Next, he thinks wryly, he’s going to find himself going deaf again.

“It seems to me that this whole searching thing is bringing up a whole lot of feelings for you. I mean, you never really got a chance to deal with losing Bucky, what with the plane crash and the Battle of Manhattan… Maybe it feels like it’s all happening at once.”

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.” It’s a mantra that he repeats, when the visions of what they have done to his friend are too strong. Bucky was always strong for him when Steve needed him. Steve needs to do the same. 

“Well, that’s nice, but I don’t know if it works like that anymore.”

Sam pats Steve’s shoulders, which shudder with loud breaths. It’s a comforting combination of saving Steve’s pride by not mentioning it, and providing support. After a few minutes, Steve feels his insides loosen enough to breathe again, and he mutters, “Thanks.”

“You told Agent Quartermain that you wanted answers. Is that really what this is about?”

“No,” Steve admits. “I think-, I think I know what happened.”

“I know. I still don’t know if you should have read through that file. It isn’t-“

“Not that. It’s more than that.”

“More than brainwashing and torture?” Sam asks. “What else can there be?”

“I always suspected that Peggy and Howard were up to something, back during the war. I just didn’t want to admit what had happened.”

“That what had happened?”

“That Bucky had changed. The torture – we could all tell that Zola had done something to him. He was never the same after that, but he thought he could pretend for me. He was trying to protect me.”

He can remember the way that Bucky’s smile fell whenever he thought Steve wasn’t looking, catalogued in his mind because the serum wouldn’t let him forget anything. Remembers seeing Howard’s plane take off, in the middle of the Austrian forest where he had no business being. These memories are what haunt him most at night: all of the questions that he didn’t ask when he had the chance.

“What are you trying to say?”

“What I’m trying to say,” Steve begins angrily, stopping to take a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is that I think SHIELD was using him at the very beginning. And I let it happen…”

“And you think that’s what made it possible for them to create the Winter Soldier,” Sam finishes. “How about you start from the beginning.”

 

_“I don’t understand. Why can’t I see him?”_

_Despite her usual calm, competent expression, Steve could see sympathy in her eyes. She clearly did not enjoy her job here. “They’re just finishing some tests.”_

_“They’ve been giving him tests for two days.”_

_“We have no idea what he’s been through Steve. Maybe he just needs some time to get back on his feet.”_

_“But they’re treating him like-,” Steve huffs, turning away and pacing towards the entrance, following the track he’s made in the dirt in front of the tent. “I thought he was fine. I don’t understand why I can’t see him.”_

_“I’m sure he’s fine.” She presses her hand to his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. He knows that he looks foolish, and desperate, but he did not go into enemy territory to save his friend, only for the Army to take him away again. He can’t imagine what she thinks of him._

_As if reading his thoughts, she gives him a comforting smile. “You’re a good friend, but you needn’t worry. Sargent Barnes will be released soon.”_

_He sucks in a breath at the word ‘released’, and waits for the panic to set in again. ‘Released’ is what you say to prisoners, he cannot help but think. He’s surprised still, when his racing heart doesn’t cause his chest to seize up, and his breath to falter. Now, with the serum, he can make an attempt at a smile, as if consoled._

_Phillip’s tent flap opens across the yard, and he marches, slowly, towards the medical tent. Both Steve and Peggy rise to greet him._

_“Captain,” he acknowledges, only slightly mocking. “Agent Carter, I’m going to need you to follow me.”_

_“Of course.” She pats Steve’s shoulder again, and whispers a promise that she’ll return when she can. When Phillips stands by the medical tent’s entrance, waiting for her to follow, she glances back at Steve. He is surprised and frightened by how apologetic she looks as she disappears inside._

 

Carol has returned with sandwiches she’s found at some all-night diner nearby, and the three of them are sitting in a circle on the sidewalk as Steve tells his story. After he’s spoken, Steve picks up his food and tries to eat some of it.

“So you think that Bucky got involved with something then?” Carol asks.

“He went out by himself a lot, and came back early in the morning when we were all asleep. Howard and Peggy made some comments-, I think they were trying to tell me what was happening. But I was just so glad to have him back, that I-“

“You decided to pretend everything was fine.”

“And then we lost him.” Steve tosses his sandwich down, tired of pretending to eat. “I’m really not hungry.”

“What do you think he was doing though?” Sam presses.

“I think that whatever Zola did to him, made him stronger. And that Howard, and Peggy and Colonel Phillips used his talents and made him into a weapon.”

“Christ. That boy has no luck. But are you sure? Because from what you said-“

“I’m certain,” he insists. “I can’t explain right now, but I know what they did.”

“So he’s like the world’s first SHIELD agent then?” Sharon notes. “That’s weird.”

“Except SHIELD was protecting me.”

“From what?”

“Hell if I know.”

Sam and Sharon seem to have kept their appetites, so they finish their early breakfasts. Steve stands, full of the frantic energy that he always gets when he wants to move, do something and fix everything. It’s the same burn of impatience that got him in trouble when he wasn’t big enough to face the people he was angry with, but now it makes him eager to find the right person and hit them as hard as he can. That usually, at least for a few moments, makes him feel better.

“How did Hydra figure out how to make a super soldier serum anyways?”

“Hmm?” he turns towards her, distracted by his thoughts. Bucky is out there, and he can feel the distance between them acutely. It’s the feeling he has always gotten when Bucky is in danger.

“I’m not an expert, but it sounds like he got a less-awesome version of the stuff they gave you. But I thought the serum was a big secret that no one could figure out.”

Sam looks up towards Steve. “She’s got a good point. You said all of the serum was destroyed after they gave it to you.”

“It was. Zola must have figured it out on his own.”

“And never used it on anyone else?”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Steve agrees. Even if Bucky had been the only successful case with this other serum, they knew that Zola was at least partially involved in the Winter Soldier program. Why hadn’t he taken the chance to reverse engineer the serum when he could?

“I feel like we have a whole lot more questions than answers right now. And that’s not including Sharon’s special power thing and the Marvels project.”

Sharon pushed herself up to throw away her trash, and tells them both, “I think you can put my freaky magic powers to the side for a bit while you find your friend.”

“No, we promised we would help you,” Steve argues. 

“I don’t think you did,” she points out. “You just barged in and started looking through the files.”

“Well, we are going to help.”

The way that she puts her hand on his arm, stepping up beside him, reminds him a lot of Peggy. As it has always been, the women in his life helping him, and him trying to pay them back. “That means a lot to me Captain, and I really appreciate what you guys have done for me already” she tells him. “But what do we do now?”

“We?”

“Now, I’m guessing we go to sleep,” he admits, breaking up the argument he senses coming. “Not much else for us to do this late at night.”

“Right.” Sam, holding up a hand for help, gets to his feet. “Regroup tomorrow for breakfast. We need a new plan. How do waffles sound?”

“I’ll be there,” Carol tells them, stubborn. “You’ve got me interested.

At least Steve is learning to stop arguing with people who offer him help. He reluctantly agrees.

 

Before meeting with Sam and Carol again, Steve looks through the pictures he managed to capture on his phone.

There was no way of being certain of what was left in the Triskelion unless they went back and investigated: a plan that would have to be shelved for quite some time, until they could be certain that it was safe to go back. And that was only if the fighting hadn’t created any more structural damage. His phone probably had all of what was left of the Marvels project.

The formulas were far above anything that he could understand. Even if he had been good at math in school, and his health hadn’t prevented him from getting a chance to really learn much more than his multiplication table, it was clearly very advanced calculations. Nevertheless, he glanced through every page just to see if anything jumped out at him.

And something did. One page had a series of calculations that seemed to be connected to several names, which he jotted down onto a piece of paper to look up later. But the last two: a series of number and symbols, and the names ‘Howard Stark’ and ‘Abraham Erskine’.

Immediately, he sent a text to Tony, with that photo attached. Expecting that Stark was busy, he put it into his pocket and hurried out of his hotel room to meet with Sam and Carol. He was only half a block down the street when his phone beeped with Tony’s response, clearly generated by Jarvis based on its coherency.

‘Where’d you dig this up?’

Unwilling to explain the series of events that led to that picture, Steve avoided the question. ‘Do you recognize this?’

Immediately, he gets his answer. ‘Nope. Bruce says that it looks like someone’s medical notes. I’ll look into it’

He ready to plead with Tony to let it go, but puts his phone back into his pocket, fully aware that he’s going to hear all about it soon enough. Sam really had insisted on waffles, and the three of them were meeting up a waffle joint of his choosing. Once he’d gets his order, he sits down with the two of them outside.

“You get your run in this morning?” Sam asks, making room for him on the table.

“Sure. It’s getting warmer though. I think I liked the cold better.”

“You’re in the South now. It gets hot here,” Carol points out. “I remember moving down here from Massachusetts and how freakishly early it gets warm.”

Sam kept up a short, normal conversation about the weather in DC compared to that of New England, where they’d all grown up. Steve focused on his waffles – which were quite good, and not too sweet – until the conversation lulled and he realized they had become aware of his silence.

“Something the matter, Steve?” Sam asks, keeping his voice light hearted and free of obvious concern. Although it’s transparent, Steve appreciates the effort to make him feel normal.

“I think I found something this morning.”

He explains to the two of him how he got the pictures, and what he’s found. After Sam is finished scolding him for not taking a break, he does concede that this seems to be an actual lead.

“Stark the elder was a part of SHIELD back in the day, wasn’t he? They must have been working on whatever this is for a long time.”

“He was one of the founders. I just don’t get this bit about Erskine. He died long before SHIELD started. This might be from before I even met him.”

“Was Erskine another scientist?”

“He was the man who came up with the supersoldier serum they gave me. But I didn’t think that any of his research survived. That’s why they couldn’t recreate it.”

“Maybe this is about something else?” Carol suggests, clearly not believing it herself.

“I have a bad feeling about this. I think we need to talk to Tony and Doctor Banner in person.”


	4. Chapter 4

It took only two phone calls to make it to New York City by that night.

The first was to Sam’s supervisor, who very kindly gave him a temporary leave of absence until he could finish working through his “family problems”. He admitted that, ‘though that asshole’s usually trying to cut my budget, I kinda feel bad lying to him’. The other call was received, not made, by Pepper Potts, who was calling to inform them that they had a 3 o’clock flight that afternoon into JFK, and that whatever they’d told Tony had him in up in arms about something. It was hard to tell if she was annoyed or thankful

Carol didn’t seem surprised to find out that Steve knew Tony Stark. Perhaps she, like many other people, assumed all important people traveled in some sort of high society circle. Or, he admitted to himself, if he was less bitter, he would assume that she had seen them working together during the Battle of New York. Either way, there was a private plane waiting for them at Reagan Airport, with an interior larger than most of the apartments Steve had lived in as a kid. He politely kept his annoyance at the extravagance far away from Carol and Sam’s excitement. He did, however, tell the man who holding the sign with ‘Captain America’ written on it to take the the one on the window off before he got in.

Surprisingly, it’s Doctor Banner who greets them when they reach the tower.

“I thought that you might appreciate someone coming down to welcome you,” he explains at Steve’s obvious confusion. “Tony’s busy upstairs.”

As they walk into the elaborate glass elevator, Steve remembers to introduce his friends. “Doctor Banner, these are my friends: Carol Danvers and Sam Wilson.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Doctor Banner tells them, nodding at them both. He’s a lot calmer than the last time Steve had seen him – though, that had not been the greatest of circumstances. It was just odd to think that someone whose alter-ego was the Hulk could seem calmer after prolonged exposure to Tony Stark. “I’m assuming you’re all here about those photos you sent?”

“Yes, you said that it’s medical information?”

“I only glanced at it for a moment, but I think I recognized some standard medical calculations and units.”

“I guess that makes sense, if it’s about medical tests.”

“I don’t mean to pry,” Doctor Banner promises, completely sincere, “but is this about your friend?”

It’s not hard to figure out that Tony had been talking about him. Of course, Doctor Banner cannot be faulted because of Tony’s big mouth. “No, it’s not.”

The elevator door opens a few minutes later and Doctor Banner leaves first, with an expression like he’s thinking something through. Tony, standing by one of the lab stations with a bunch of blue light projections around him, notices their arrival at once.

“Cap! Took you long enough to get here. Get lost on the way?”

“It’s only been a few hours.”

Tony waves his response away, and approaches Sam. “You! Steve wouldn’t bring you over last time. I’m almost finished with your wings.”

“Dude, you gave my wings to Tony Stark?”

Steve shrugs, embarrassed that Tony had mentioned it. He’d taken it over as soon as he’d come back to New York, intending for it to be a surprise ‘thank-for-helping-me-track-down-my-assassin-best-friend’ gift.

“I have to say, those wings were an inspired idea. It sounds like something I would have come up with,” Tony told them both. “It’ll be ready for testing in a few days.”

Sam lights up at the mention of testing out his wings again, no doubt imagining, just as Steve is, all of the modifications that Tony has probably added. “That’s awesome. Not going to lie.”

Preening at the compliment, Tony waves away the images he’d been looking at. “Now what about these files you want us to look at?”

Steve pulls out his phone and hands it to him. “We didn’t get to take the card copies, but I managed to photograph a few pages.”

Tony takes it over to his desk and somehow pulls up the photographs on his holographic-projection thing. “It’s good to see you’re using the phone I got you. Get to any of its other features? Candy Crush, Snapchat-, I loaded them all on there for you.”

“Candy Crush is pretty addicting.”

Stark raises an eyebrow, expression between annoyed and impressed. “I can’t tell if you’re joking. Is he joking?”

Sam keeps a straight face; it reassures Steve to see that he his friend will be staying on his side. Carol only looks extremely amused, and not at all intimidated. Perhaps because of her indifference, Stark hones in on her now.

“I wasn’t expecting you to bring a girl friend.” 

“I’m Captain Danvers. It’s an… honor to meet you, Mr. Stark.”

“Tony. Please not Mr. Stark, that’s my father. Speaking of which,” Tony gestures towards the photographed pages hovering in front of them. “Where the hell did you dig this up?”

“The Triskelion.”

“Was that before or after you drove a helicarrier into it?”

“After,” Steve said, refusing rise to the bait. He’d decided, after the Battle of New York, to take Tony’s attempts to get a reaction out of him the way as the same as when Bucky used to try to start a fight: Tony wanted to see how far he could push. Establish boundaries. Well, Steve needed his help, so they didn’t have time to fight over it.

“And my dad’s name is on it. Along with your other scientist friend. Coming from a SHIELD facility, I’m doubting we’re going to find anything good. JARVIS, have you finished?”

“Yes sir. However, Doctor Banner has indicated that he’s found something as well.”

“Then where is he?” Tony asks impatiently.

A few moments later, Doctor Banner enters the room again from the room he’d disappeared into. His expression, no longer calm, makes Steve wary.

“What’d you find?” Tony asks.

“I don’t like this,” Banner tells him gravely. Turning to face everyone else, he adds, “If this is what I think it is…”

“What do you think it is, Doctor?” Sam interrupts.

“I thought I recognized the calculations because they were medical, but actually… I remember these from when I was working with the army for their supersoldier program.”

“My dad was involved in the supersoldier project?” Tony seems genuinely shaken by the realization. “Was this before or after the war?”

“We have no way of knowing,” Steve admits. “The file we took this from was a current project SHIELD was involved in somehow.”

“Current?” Doctor Banner repeats. “Were they…” He seems unwilling to finish the thought

“We think so.” Steve turns to Carol, unsure of how much she wants to reveal. “Do you want to explain?”

“We’re trying to figure out what they did to me,” is all she says. She looks them both squarely in the eyes, and ignites the light on her hand again. It flares up at once, brighter than Steve has seen it so far.

At once, the room falls into a kind of scientific chaos. Doctor Banner takes a step back in shock, and then another two steps forward to get a closer look at the hand closest to him. Stark barks out an order to JARVIS and pulls up a screen of numbers and charts.

“What do you call that?” Doctor Banner asks, adjusting his glasses to move in even closer.

“Call it? I-, I don’t know. I never thought about it.” He hums. “Should I have?”

“No, of course not. This is just…”

“Unexpected,” Tony fills in. “This screams ‘superpower’.”

“You can’t jump to conclusions Tony.”

“I’m not jumping! It’s like… barely a step. A long step. Hardly requires jumping.”

The two of them dissolve into a conversation of whispers and, on Tony’s side, pokes to the shoulder and arm. There is a lot of pointing at the charts and gesturing.

“Any change they’re actually mad scientists?” Carol whispers to him and Sam. He has to admire her bravery, if only for not looking completely overwhelmed.

“They’ve definitely got the mad part under control,” Sam whispers back, purposefully loud enough for the two in question to hear.

“Well, this changes everything.” Tony declares, ignoring him. “If anyone else knows about whatever was in that file you lost… we’ve got enough trouble as is.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Sam promises.

 

While tests are running, Tony orders Chinese food for the group and they sit in a corner of the lab to eat. Bruce sits off to the side of Tony and eats his meal, clearly paying attention but not saying a word. Tony asks questions between every bite.

“No progress on your Soviet boyfriend?”

“He was at the Triskelion at the same as us, but he got away. We ran into a little bit of trouble.”

“What the Captain here means,” Carol cuts in, “is that he was being followed by a small army of men in tac suits who tried to kill us all.”

“SHIELD?”

“I don’t think so. But they said that they were trying to track Bucky too.”

“That could be anyone,” Tony dismisses. “He’s pretty unpopular right now. And you have no idea where he could have gone from there, I assume?”

“As far as we know, he doesn’t have any contacts in DC. Hydra’s being wiped clean down there.”

“I heard about that. Ugly.” Tony grimaces. “I hate Hydra as much as the next guy, but they’ve turned it into a witch hunt. It also doesn’t leave him with a lot of options as far as ‘friends’.”

“Do you know where they were keeping him before the attack?” Bruce asks.

“We were trying to find out. All we could get was that it was in a bank somewhere.”

“Banks in DC. That’ll narrow it down to several hundred.” Tony seems pleased, and not daunted by this thought. “JARVIS, could you check security cameras for sightings of our Russian friend?”

“Of course sir.”

They wait in silence for a few minutes, eating their food. There’s a dinging noise, like that on a microwave, before JARVIS informs them. “Captain, there is something you should see.”

An image appears, from a security camera back in DC. It shows the intersection between two streets and the large front of what is very clearly a bank. The video shows a fast-forward version of people walking down the street, until it slows down and Bucky appears.

Steve doesn’t even consciously move towards the screen. Although he cannot see Bucky’s face, he recognizes the steady gait and the subtle lean towards his left arm. Like a punch to the gut, Steve remembers dislocating his friend’s right arm during the battle and is horrified to think that it has been like that ever since. Bucky walks very slowly towards the bank and disappears inside. JARVIS speeds up the video again, and plays again when Bucky emerges some time later. This time, he staggers onto the pavement and huddles next to the doorway, clearly having some kind of panic attack.

“Dude, you alright?”

Steve realizes, belatedly, that he is shaking again. The phantom pains have returned, worse than since he came back from the ice. His SHIELD mandated therapist had warned him about them, explaining that his brain does not care that he doesn’t have asthma or heart problems anymore. 

He forces himself into the deep breaths he used to rely on. After a few moments of calm, when he feels like he can speak again, he nods and grunts out “thank you.”

When he turns towards the others, embarrassed, he sees that Tony is holding out a glass of water to him. It’s a surprising gesture that finally inspires a heat he recognizes as a blush. He repeats, “thank you” and drinks it as quickly as he can.

“I have something else for you sir, if you’re interested,” JARVIS tells him, sounding more tentative than Steve would have expected from a computer program.

“Yes, of course.” Steve wipes his eyes, not bothering to be discrete. “Pull it up.”

This time there is another empty street, but he recognizes it. The time stamp is only from the day before, and he recognizes the street as being one of those leading towards the Triskelion. 

After a few seconds, the figure of Bucky clearly appears again. Taking in a deep breath to center himself, Steve catalogues the differences: while he had clearly been in pain before, this time he is staggering down the street. He stops in front of a street camera and Steve catches his mouth moving, speaking to someone or something. After doing this several times, Bucky lays unconscious on the sidewalk. The video then fast forwards a few hours ahead, and shows an innocuous looking car pull up, and then two women in black outfits heft the body into their car before driving away. The video goes black.

“JARVIS, who are those people?” Tony demands.

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Well, find out,” he snaps.

“Of course, sir.”

Sam, hand still resting on Steve’s shoulder, squeezes reassuringly. Carol steps over as well, coming to stand protectively next to him, as if he was particularly vulnerable. Perhaps he was. 

Tony whirls away, muttering to himself some scientific-sounding jargon that Steve doesn’t pretend to understand as he led Bruce away from their little group.

Bucky had looked so sick in the last video. He can remember being sick so many times when he was younger, and waking up in his mother’s bed with Bucky sitting at the window, or on the edge of the bed. Bucky had never seemed surprised when he got better, even after illnesses to bad that his mother had prayed at his feet. Seeing Bucky on the ground and knowing that he was going to wake up somewhere, alone: he can hardly stand it.

“We’ll find him,” Carol promises, squeezing his hand.

The three of them in silence in front of the black screen as Steve calms himself. When he regains his ability to speak, he has convinced himself that he is fine. He has always been able to be strong for Bucky.

“We should call Sharon. See if these are people she recognizes.”

“Would you like me to send you a picture to give her?”

“Thanks JARVIS.”

His phone beeps instantly, and he send the picture to Sharon, with the added caption, ‘do you know them?’ Only a few seconds later, he gets a response.

‘I don’t know how you get yourself into these messes Steve. I will be in NY in 6 hrs. Meet address to follow’.

“Well, Sharon seems to know who we’re dealing with,” he announces. “We’re meeting in 6 hours.”

 

“You really don’t have to stay around here with us.”

They were all staying in Stark’s guestrooms. Carol had left her door open, and as he’s passed he’d seen her sitting on her bed, idly combing her hair and looking pensive. When he’s knocked, the door had swung open farther than he’d intended. She had clearly been so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed him going by, but she nods for him to come in.

“It’s my choice,” she reminds him.

“I just can’t imagine this is how you were planning on spending your time: getting shot at and prodded by Tony Stark.”

“Probably not. But I don’t exactly have a job, or a home anymore: I was given a medical discharge when I went missing.”

“Missing?”

“The blank in my memory is about the same time I went missing.”

She pulls her feet up and rests her chin on her knees. Since they hadn’t exactly been expecting to stay in New York, she’d been given a Stark industries t-shirt to wear for bed, which was wide and baggy enough on her to make her seem very small compared to Steve. 

For a moment, she reminds him of Natasha, sitting on the bed in Sam’s apartment.

“Do you have place to go, after this?”

“I should have some money in the bank saved up. I can find a place somewhere in DC, or New York, or something like that.”

“Any family?”

“My parents are dead, and my brother and I have never really been on speaking terms. When I decided to go into the military, I kind of lost contact with everyone.”

“Did you like it?” Steve asks, genuinely interested. He remembers his own sense of purpose in the army, and his decision to team up with SHIELD when he’d come into this century. It had never been his dream when he was a kid, but after the serum, he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.

“It was always my thing, ever since I was a kid. Me and my brother used to pretend to be air force pilots, with those little plastic planes they give little boys…” she smiles wistfully. “But my dad wasn’t into the idea of girls wanting to be soldiers too. When I dropped out of school to join, that was it.”

She has the same lost look on her face as he’d seen when he came in. The expression of someone who feels isolated no matter where they go. He sees it a lot, when he looks in the mirror after long days around civilians.

He doesn’t know when exactly he started of thinking of everyone as a ‘civilian’.

“Everyone knows that I was the absolute last choice to be picked as a soldier. Spent most of my days in bed, with migraines and flus and everything else you can think of. My poor mother came home from the TB ward just to have to nurse her own son. And Bucky - , if I spent half of my life in bed, then he spent almost that much sitting on my bed, trying to cheer me up. His momma used to tell him he was going to catch what I had, but he said he didn’t care.”

“It must have been nice, to have a friend with you.”

“We were always ‘Steve and Bucky’,” he smiles at the memory. “Course, we had other friends too, but I couldn’t get rid of him if I tried. He’d just show up on the fire escape anyways.”

“You miss him.”

“Always. We were never apart much as kids, and after my mother died, we got an apartment together. Lasted a few months apart during the war before I was off looking for him again.”

“I wish I had a friend like that,” Carol admits. “I think I scared off a lot of the other girls when I was a kid.”

“Couldn’t scare off Bucky. And I would know, I tried.”

“What if he’s changed now? And he’s never that guy you remember again.”

“He’s all I’ve got left. I don’t care what shape he’s in, but I need him back. I have to help him.”

Carol slides over to sit right next to him, offering him the comfort of her side to lean on. Hesitant, he presses up against her and reminds himself that there are other people out there too, looking out for him. Sam and Carol, and Tony and Doctor Banner even: it might not feel like it, but he’s got friends here too. It’s almost enough.

 

“Are you, like, some kind of magnet? Does trouble just follow you around? I can’t even-“ Sharon huffs and drops into the seat in front of them.

Steve had convinced Tony that he did not need to accompany them to the meeting. The point of meeting at Starbucks, he stressed, is to not attract attention. Something Stark was not very good at. Any further arguing on the subject was prevented by Doctor Banner distracting him with ideas of tests for Carol who, gamely, agreed to be put through some of their less invasive tests. That left Steve and Sam heading to their 100th nearly identical Starbucks. Sharon, it seemed, was not happy to see them.

“What’s the trouble this time?” Sam asks.

“I don’t know how you did it, but you found yourself a dead woman.” She opens the folder she’s holding and pulls out a print of the photo they’d sent her. She points at the driver, and explains, “This is Melinda May, also known as the ‘Cavalry’. She and Natasha Romanoff used to compete on their combat scores. Had just been taken off desk duty for a small strike team when she totally disappeared, presumed dead by the time of the Hydra attack.”

“Not very dead then. Hydra?”

“Yeah, no.” Sharon scoffs. “There is no one less Hydra than Melinda May. She was a SHIELD agent all the way. I don’t know who this girl with her is, but wherever they took your boy, it wasn’t for Hydra.”

“That’s … not really helpful,” Steve admits.

“Can’t help you there. What I can tell you is that you’re up against something big. May is no one to mess with on her own, and the people she’s with, well, I can’t imagine they’re anything less than the best. I can’t imagine what they want the Winter Soldier for though.”

“Thanks for coming all the way out here to tell us this,” Steve tells her sincerely. “It means a lot.”

She waves a hand, brushing it off. “Just doing my duty. Now, if there was something you could tell me in exchange, it might make my trip worth it.”

“An exchange?” Sam repeats.

“Yeah. Nothing terrible; just something to bring back to the others.”

Steve does not want to know who she considers the ‘others’: while he trusts her, he does not trust the wheeling and dealing that DC has made so normal. He exchanges a look with Sam for a moment, weighing their options before deciding.

“How about a tip about a secret supersoldier program SHIELD created?” It is clearly the last thing she has expected. He just hopes that he has made the right choice.

“You’re joking.”

“Afraid not. All we have so far is a name. Mar Vell, with two ‘l’s.”

She types it into her phone, and stands up. “Thanks for the tip Captain, but I have a flight to catch. Agency wants me in Chicago by morning.”

She rushes out of the coffee shop, eyes intent on her phone. As soon as she’s gone, Steve sighs and rubs face.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to tell her? She was a SHIELD agent.”

“She has a lot of connections that even Tony doesn’t have. Maybe she’ll be able to figure something out that we can’t.”

“And we just hope that she decides to tell us?”

“We ask Tony to monitor her phone,” he corrects, sipping his coffee. It’s gone mostly cold, but he pretends to enjoy it.

“I didn’t know Captain America was into that kind of thing.”

Steve shrugs. “I am, at least.”  
-  
They’re riding the elevator to the top floor when JARVIS informs them that “Sir has something he’d like to show you.” The doors open at to one of the labs, instead of the penthouse.

“Cap! And his bird wonder! We’ve been waiting for you. I think Brucie found something for you.”

Doctor Banner rolled his eyes, but still managed to look amused. Steve would never understand how he spend so much time around Tony. In front of him was a hologram of what he recognized to be a piece of DNA of some kind. Carol was nowhere to be seen.

“What did you find?”

Banner gestured to the image in front of him. “We took a small blood sample to look for any kinds of abnormalities and found … this.”

There is clearly something that they are supposed to be seeing. Sam is the one to remind the two scientists of their ignorance. “For the idiots in the room…”

“Oh yes, sorry.” Banner looked apologetic at least, while Tony rolled his eyes this time. “Her DNA is completely changed. It has the same base pairs as human DNA, but there are several divergences that have never been seen in a human before. Or anywhere, for that matter.”

“They changed her DNA?”

“Yep! She’s half human and half… whatever the hell this is.”

“I should go talk to her,” Sam tells Steve. He agrees: while he knows what it’s like to feel less than human, he cannot pretend to understand this. The fact that SHIELD could have done this to a young woman without her consent – he nods as Sam leaves the room to go look for her.

“I hope you didn’t break it to her like that,” he admonishes.

Bruce gives him a telling look – clearly, Tony had been the one giving the news. He feels frightened and empathetic. They have no idea of the full extent of what has been done to her, or if there are any side effects. There is technology out there that can do this to someone, and if it survived the attack, it might have gotten into the wrong hands. That is, if it wasn’t a Hydra program to begin with.

“So we have no idea what they did to her DNA?”

“It seems to be a cross between her human DNA, and some other species we’ve never seen before. We’ve already started looking at specific sequence differences in order to identify some of the differences, but it’s going to take time. We don’t have a lot to base it on, other than you and I. But we’ll do what we can.”

“She seems to be in perfect health,” Tony supplied. “No obvious side effects.”

“Do you know how this happened?’ Bruce asks.

“We met right before we were attacked at the Triskelion. She was there because she had some memories of a SHIELD medical study she’d been a part of, and she’d been looking through some files she’d found. That’s where we found those pages I showed you.”

“Is she the only one left?”

“I think she was the only one. All the other names we saw were fake.”

“That’s not exactly normal. Why were they so set on her?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to him yet. He’d had too many things to think about already. “I have no idea. And maybe it means something.”

“You seem a little out of your depth here, Capricorn.”

“Don’t I know it. Sharon says that Bucky was picked up by a former SHIELD agent.”

“Hydra?”

“She doesn’t think so,” he shrugs helplessly. “There seem to be a few groups of old SHIELD agents still out there. Maybe she’s part of one of them.”

“If she’s out there, we’ll find her,” Tony promises. “JARVIS is already running it through my facial recognition software. Got anything yet?”

“Several sir. I’ve already connected her to several dozen locations throughout the United States already, including several incidents of breaking and entering, car chases, and destruction of property.”

“She gets around,” Steve mutters, flicking through the photographs that JARVIS has pulled up already. “Do we have any idea who she’s working for?”

“Her uniform still has the SHIELD insignia on her uniform.” Tony zooms in on her arm. “I’m hoping she’s not in one of those ones that kills politicians.”

“Do we know what she’s been doing?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. We may be able to predict where she will be next.”

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to bring in Hill on this?”

Tony has asked him several times already, between his offers to ask Pepper or his friend Rhodey for advice. JARVIS could give them a list of possible targets based on her movements, but they only knew so much. Even Tony had to admit that there were a lot of things going on with Hydra that they did not know about.

“What about talking to your friend Carter? She might know something.”

“She’s a little too close to SHIELD for my liking. And we already have her looking into things for Carol.”

“And you haven’t heard anything yet?”

“No, but it’s only been a few hours.” He takes his phone out of his pocket. “Oh. My battery’s run out.”

“Very irresponsible of you Captain. What if someone really needed to contact you?”

“Most of the people I know are in the building,” Steve admits. “You have a charger?”

“I made this phone. Of course I have a charger. Somewhere.”

Tony goes to his desk and starts rooting around, muttering to himself and batting away the less-than helpful hands of his robot companions. Robots, Steve decides, or the lack of them, are the biggest disappointment in the future. Orson Welles had told him enough to make him wary of aliens (Thor excluded, since ‘alien’ wasn’t a big enough word to describe whatever he was), but Tony’s robots were the closest thing the modern world had to the ones he’d heard about in his childhood. He’s broken from his thoughts when Tony calls his name.

“It’s up and charging. But you have a voicemail.”

Steve goes over to the wall charger and looks at his phone: one missed message from an unknown number. Entering his password in, he listens.

_“Hello? Steve, this is Quartermain. I’m sorry to call you like this, but Sharon sent me a message about the project you were looking for. Now, I don’t want to frighten you, but I need you to come back to DC right now. I have something you need to see. Do not delay: I need to see you. Meet you at 8AM tomorrow, in your hotel room. Do not try to contact me until then.” [*click*]_

“Go get Sam. We need to make a plan.”

JARVIS calls in Doctor Banner, Sam and Carol, who seems unconcerned that people can tell she has been crying. Everyone looks to him for the plan.

“Sam, Quartermain called and says that she needs to see us at once about the Marvels project. I think you and Carol should go meet her in DC.”

“We’re not leaving you to go after Barnes on your own Steve.”

“What are we, the help?” Tony protests.

“You’re bad influences, that’s what you are. No offense Doctor Banner,” Sam adds.

“I’m not going after him alone. If I’m going to find where Melinda May took Bucky, I’m going to need help. Someone who knew her.”

Natahsa, of course, would have been his first choice, if he didn’t know that she was busy finding herself after the fall of SHIELD. He knows, of course, that if he asked her, she’d come back in an instant, ready to fight. That is why he will not ask. He is distinctly less certain of his second choice.

“You’re not thinking Romanoff, are you?”

“Natasha is busy, but she left me a number to call in emergencies. I think this qualifies.”

“You don’t mean-“

Doctor Banner cuts Tony off before he can make a joke. “No one has seen Agent Barton since the Battle of New York. For all we know, he could be Hydra.”

“If she trusts him, then so do I. We need someone who knows SHIELD, and he’s the only person I’ve got right now.”

“Wait a minute,” Sam butts in, “who the hell is Agent Barton?”

“The last member of our merry band of Avengers, except Thor of course. SHIELD agent, or he was one. Got mind controlled into almost killing us all, fights with a bow and arrow,” Tony ticks each one off of a finger, “good friends with Romanoff, or so we think. Fell off the face of the earth after the whole ‘saving the world thing’. We don’t know much else about him though: man of little words. Oh, and his file wasn’t one of the ones dumped in the SHIELD leak.”

“How’d he manage that?”

“No idea. Man of mystery, our friend Barton. You going to call him then?”

“I’ll have to.” 

 

“How did you get this number?”

“Barton? This is Steve.”

“Huh. How did Captain America get my number?”

“Natasha gave it to me.”

[*pause*] “Where are you? I don’t like talking on phones.”

“Stark’s tower in New York.”

“What are your thoughts on pizza?”

“… positive, for the most part.”

“Good. I haven’t had dinner yet. Meet you outside in an hour.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an effort to continue publishing this story, despite my desire to never acknowledge it again

Sam insists that, since their flight isn’t until the next morning, that he will be acting as backup for their meeting. No matter how much he tries to explain that Barton is a friendly, Sam insists on being there ‘just in case’. When Carol agrees, he is officially outnumbered.

So an hour later, he is waiting outside of Stark Tower (he refuses to call it the ‘Avengers Tower’), with Sam ready to follow from afar. After waiting 10 minutes, he sees Barton coming at him from the right, wearing a light purple t-shirt, jeans and sunglasses. Where Steve feels like he always stands out, Barton weaves through the crowd like a born New Yorker, fiddling with his phone in one hand while mindlessly avoiding traffic. When he stops in front of him, he puts his phone away and smiles, like he’s genuinely glad to see him.

“Nice to see you Captain.”

Out of habit, he protests. “Please, call me Steve.”

“Alrighty then Steve. Pizza?”

Steve nods and follows him down the street, tipping his head to avoid too many stares. Luckily, New Yorkers as a rule don’t care enough to notice him. After only a block or two, Barton leads him into a generic looking pizza place and seats them near the window. The waitress seems to recognize him and, when Steve waves away the offer of a menu, leaves without taking his order.

“I thought you were living in DC right now?” Barton comments, putting down his glasses. For the first time, Steve can see signs of strain in him: his eyes are dark with bags, as though he hasn’t been sleeping well.

“I’ve been moving around more lately. DC’s not exactly happy with me right now.”

Barton laughs openly. “Oh I bet not. Lot of property damage you caused there.”

“It wasn’t just me,” he defends, but acquiesces. “But yes. It’s been an … interesting few months.”

“So I hear. Tasha told me all about your run in with the Winter Soldier.”

Resisting the little burn of jealousy at the knowledge that Natasha had been keeping in touch with Barton, but not him, he instead asks, “Have you ever seen him?”

“Seen? Not exactly,” Barton picks up his silverware and spreads his napkin as he speaks, “Back before I was with SHIELD, I had a job with the same target as him. I got there before he did, and was shot in the leg as a nice ‘thank you’ gesture.”

The carelessness Barton speaks with annoys him, somehow goading him into defending his friend. “He didn’t know what he was doing. They were controlling him.”

It’s the first thing he’s said that seems to have any real impact on Barton. The former agent takes up his knife and seems to weigh it in his hand, eyes scanning the table. After a few moments of tense silence, he looks up with a surprisingly open expression.

“She said that he’s your friend.”

Barton is the first person to refer to it in the present tense, and Steve is ashamed of his earlier annoyance at him. He should have realized that Barton had his own demons to fight as far as ‘mind controlled actions’ went.

“He is. I’m trying to find him, and I was actually hoping that you might help me.”

The waitresses arrival with Barton’s pizza prevented him from seeing his reaction, and when everything settled down Barton looked cool and calm again, if ravenously hungry. He ate an entire slice before he answered.

“Why do you think I can help?”

“I’m looking for a former SHIELD agent. I was hoping that you might be able to help me find her.”

“What’s her name?” he asks, garbled between bites,

“Melinda May.”

Barton chokes a little, coughing into his hand and dropping his pizza almost into his lap. He waves away Steve’s attempts to help him and chugs half of his glass of water. “May? Melinda May?”

“We have surveillance footage of her and another woman pulling him into their car.”

Barton takes up the rest of his slice of pizza, and eats it. Then, he eats another one. It is hard to tell whether he is thinking things through, or just hungry. After one more slice, he pushes his plate away from him.

“So if I just so happen to know where May is hiding your friend, what is your plan?”

The question seems obvious. “I’ll get him out.”

“Right. I’ll make you a deal.”

“A deal?”

“A deal. I’ll bring you to the Winter Soldier if, and only if, you let me talk to him first, alone.”

It’s even more bizarre than anything Steve could have guessed. “You want to talk to him? Alone? Didn’t he shoot you?”

“If I didn’t talk to everyone who’s shot me, I’d have no friends. And us mind controlled guys have to stick together, right? I figure, before you come busting in, we make sure he’s ready to leave with you.”

“You can’t be serious. They’ve kidnapped him, and you seriously think that he wants to stay?”

“It’s not as easy as all that Cap. I just want to make sure that he’s ready, alright? Is it a fair deal?”

He is in an impossible place, and Barton is clearly aware of that. There is only one way he’s going to find Bucky, and Barton was willing to stand in his way if necessary. “I don’t exactly have a lot of other options right now.”

Barton grins. “That’s a yes then?”

“It’s a yes.”

“Cool, let’s go.” Barton stands up and pushes away his chair. “We’ve got to move before I lose my confidence.”  
-  
Barton asks for them to meet again in half an hour, so he could make a stop before they left.  
Steve uses the time to go back to the tower to tell everyone where he’s going. It’s not comfortable, not knowing where Barton is going to be taking him, but Barton had seemed so intent on speaking to Bucky – there is no reason for him to be lying, that he knows of. Sam is not as easy to convince.

“Steve, he’s probably Hydra.”

“Natasha trusts him, and I do too.”

“Yeah, well, you both trusted that Sitwell guy too, and look how that went.”

The reminder stings. “I’m going whether you want me to or not. Please don’t fight me on this.”

Sam rolls his eyes and turns away, as if too annoyed to even look at him. “You’re an idiot. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”

Sam stares at him. “Has anyone ever believed you when you said that?”

The expression is so recognizable that Steve can’t help laughing. He’d seen it on his mother’s face a million times, and Bucky only a few times less than that. “You’d be surprised.”

 

 

 

Steve leaves with his shield and a bag on his back.

Barton is loitering outside of the tower already this time. He’s holding a duffel bag in one hand, and fiddling with his phone again.

“Are you ready to leave?” he asks, not even needing to look up to see Steve approach. “We’ve got to move quickly.”

He feels the same urgency, though he assumes it isn’t for the same reason. And Barton is still decidedly calm, pocketing his phone and leading them off. He doesn’t seem to be interested in talking, keeping a few steps ahead of Steve as he leads them down seemingly random combinations of streets and alleyways. According to his own mental map of the city, they’ve doubled back and taken long routes towards, ultimately, Port Authority. Accepting the precaution for what it clearly is, he stays back and pretends to read a sign while Barton buys their tickets.

“Here are three tickets. The bus leaves in 10 minutes.”

“This place is disgusting,” Steve remarks, casting his eyes around.

“You’re not the first person to say that,” Barton remarks. His amused tone implies that Steve is missing some kind of joke.

Barton somehow times it so they barely make it onto the bus before it takes off. With his hat pulled as low as ever, no one pays them any attention, even with the shield he’s holding. The only person who notices, a young girl near the back, tells him that he’s got a ‘great cosplay’.  
Steve is ushered into the window seat before Barton will sit down. “Where exactly are we going?”

“Philadelphia, for starters. Did you know that you’ve got a tail on you?”

If he’d noticed a tail following them, than Barton’s circumvent route made a lot more sense. The memory of Sam mentioning one – that Bucky had noticed one – suddenly comes back into his mind. The people from the Triskelion. “I forgot about that.”

“You forgot about a tail? What a life. Do you know what they want?”

“The one we talked to said that they were looking for Bucky.”

“I like healthy competition,” Barton tells him with a smirk. It’s good to see that he is pleased, and not upset by the relevation. He does add, after a considering look, “you probably should have mentioned it beforehand. I mean, if I hadn’t noticed for myself.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I haven’t told you everything either.” Barton shrugged. “Comes with the business.”  
He gives no indication that he’s planning on telling him anything now, either. Leaning his head back, he closes his eyes and settles in for the ride. “I recommend you get some sleep in now. Long trip ahead of us.”

Sleep has not come easily for a long time, but there is little else that can be done in this circumstance. He leans his own head against the window and watches the slow progression of people and streets pass them by.

 

  
“Get up. Dude, get up.”

Steve jerks awake at a kick in the leg, and rubs his eyes clean. The bus has lost more than half of its passengers, and the landscape outside shows a small city landscape, studded with green trees and quiet streets. Clint has both of their bags in his lap, and is tugging on his arm.

“This is our stop?” Steve stumbles after him, out of the bus and into the surprisingly busy streets. “Where are we?”

“Bumfuck nowhere. You’ve been out for a while.”

“Sorry. Did you get any sleep?”

“Nah, I don’t sleep well. Follow me.”

Apparently still fully confident in his ability to find where he is going, Barton leads them down the street towards what seems to be the city center. At least he is no longer trying to keep ahead. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“We can stop for something. There’s a good diner a few blocks from here.”

“You know this place pretty well then?”

“You could say that. I’ve visited it a few times.”

Casting his eyes around, Steve studies the town. “For SHIELD?” he assumes. While it’s not completely void of appeal, he can’t imagine visiting on vacation.

“Nah. Coulson’s niece lives up here.”

The comment is so out of the blue that Steve hardly knows how to process the idea. It would make sense for Barton to know Coulson – Natasha had told a story or two about their old ‘Strike Team Delta’ days, so he knew that they had even worked together. But he hadn’t imagined they’d known each other well enough to visit family. He’d never even thought to ask whether Coulson had family.

“You two were close?” he suggests. Barton has offered a piece of information about himself for the first time, and he doesn’t want to scare him off.

“Yep. Not anymore, I guess.”

Barton stops: they have found the diner. He pushes open the door, and finds them a booth to sit at. They take up the menus, which Steve ignores.

“Anymore?” It’s an odd choice of words.

“This is the part where I explain to you what’s going to happen. But give me, like, 5 minutes. I want to order first.”

The waitress appears, as if summoned, and takes their orders. As soon as she disappears, Steve spreads his arms, inviting him to begin. It’s clear that there Barton hasn’t told him much of anything.

“Well,” he begins, “We’re going to be going into the new SHIELD headquarters, located only a few miles outside of this city. That’s where your boy is staying, but he’s pretty well protected. Other than Melinda May, who is enough of a deterrent in herself, they’ve been training up new agents there. A kind of ‘new and improved’ thing going on.”

“So they’re just starting up all over again? Like nothing happened?”

“Oh, they’re very aware. This isn’t like SHIELD under Nick Fury. This is Phil Coulson.”

Steve blinks. “The dead one?”

Barton waves it away, as if it’s absurd to have ever considered it. “Still alive. Unclear on the ‘how’, but he’s definitely still alive and kicking. Emphasis on the kicking.”

“If you two were friends, why aren’t you there now?”

“He never called me in. So I’ve stayed away.”

He makes it sound so simple. Steve doesn’t understand; he’s going cross-country to find his best friend in the hopes of getting to bring him home. How can Barton stay away? Perhaps, he admits, their relationship was never like his and Bucky’s. It isn’t fair to assume how Barton feels, even if he does seem like an unemotional dick.

“How do you know where they are, if it’s a secret?”

“I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open, or as well as I can. Making sure they don’t get into trouble, in case they ever really need help. Not that I’m much help. Which brings me to my second point: there’s a reason I’ve been staying below the radar these last few years. I’ve been-“

The waitress comes back with their plates and Steve, cursing her for interrupting, gives his best polite smile and mentally shoos her away. After far too long, Barton continues.

“After the Battle of Manhattan, I was on medical suspension for a few months. I was pretty sick, in the brain way. Hallucinations, depression, the works. They couldn’t put me on field duty, and it didn’t help that I’d helped kill enough agents to lose a lot of my old friends. Those who weren’t convinced I was still mind controlled somehow, hated my guts anyways. I was discharged by Christmas, so I picked up my shit and headed back to my apartment in New York to try to figure my shit.”

He seems to consider that the end of the story, and starts digging into his sandwich. Steve kindly lets him eat while he thinks. Barton clearly still considers himself less than stable, and is trying to warn him not to trust him. It probably even explains why he’d been staying away from this ‘new’ SHIELD.

“What about after SHIELD fell?”

Barton laughs. “Sucks, man. We all thought we were on the straight and narrow this time and then BAM, Nazis. How were we supposed to guess Nazis? Ridiculous, I tell you.”

“You’ve just been living in New York?”

“I’ve been here and there. I take my meds and everything, but I’m not good for much still. Mostly been keeping in touch with Tasha and walking my dog.”

“And after this?”

“More dog walking? I dunno what you’re expecting, Steve. I wasn’t exactly an Avenger.”

“I bet you Phil Coulson wouldn’t say that.”

It takes him a moment to even recognize it was a cheap shot. Barton freezes in his seat, eyes cast down at the table. You could probably feel the self-flagellation from the other side of the room.

“I’m sorry. Jesus, I didn’t mean it-“

“You’re right,” Barton insists, glancing up through his eyelashes to fake a smile. “He was good at seeing the best in everyone. And he’d be thrilled to find out you think so well of him.”

Suddenly remembering Phil Coulson’s stammering attempts to ask for his signature on those vintage cards, Steve blushes a little, embarrassed for them both. “He seemed like a good man.”

“He is. That’s why you can’t just write this new SHIELD thing off without talking to him. Please, just give him a chance.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Steve promises. “But only if you do too.”

Barton snorts, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sure, whatever. Probably won’t even see them anyways.”

“Well, we shouldn’t put it off any longer. How are you planning on getting us there?”

“We’re borrowing a car. Did you bring cash?”

Rolling his eyes, Steve leaves what he assumes is enough to pay for the two of them, and follows him out of the diner.

 

 

 

There is a man standing in the parking lot.

Barton seems to be ignoring him, but the man is clearly watching the both of them. He has on a dark colored suit, and sunglasses, like the old SHIELD agents used to. It is very unlikely that he has come for a friendly chat in a random parking lot.

Still ignoring him, Steve gestures towards an old looking pickup truck. The ticket the owner put in the window said that it was paid for 12 hours as of 10 that morning, which gave them more than enough time to take it and return it before the owner would notice. Barton seems less concerned with whether or not it will be missed, but opens the door to the passenger's side as if he’s going to get in. He almost pities the kind of small town folks who leave their car doors open.

“That isn’t yours,” the man in the suit comments.

“It isn’t?” Steve mocks surprise. “It looks just like it.”

“That’s pretty surprising, considering you two came in on a bus.”

Barton backs away from the car to answer. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you have both just come from New York City, following a lead on the Winter Soldier.”

“And here I thought you were coming to visit me. I’m disappointed,” Steve tells him. “What brings you here then?”

“I’m looking for the same thing you are. And you’re going to tell me where it is.”

“Why would we do that?” Barton asks.

“Because you’ll have no other choice.”

He raises a pistol in the air and points it at Barton. “Now could you please step away from the vehicle. We don’t want you getting into trouble.”

“There’s no trouble here. I promise,” Steve raises his hands. There are no civilians here: if a fight breaks out, there is no way that this Hydra agent was going to make it out alive. If it was a plan, it was a pretty terrible one.

Barton has no desire to play along, even for just a minute. Before Steve can even see it coming, he has a knife he’s gotten from who knows where, and is throwing it at the man. It hits in the chest, right where the heart is. There is a moment, and then he falls to the ground.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Steve admits.

“I wasn’t called ‘The Amazing Hawkeye’ for nothing.”

“They called you what?” Steve laughs, heading to the other side of the truck to get in.

“They didn’t tell you? I was in the circus. You can’t blame me for the tacky name.”

It takes a few minutes, but Steve gets the car going and pulls out of the parking lot. Once he’s confident they’re not being followed, he asks the obvious question.

“Was that too easy, or is it just me?”

“They probably have a guy in every parking lot in the city. Check in every few minutes: whoever misses a check in or calls it in: they’ll know what car you’re in, and which way you’re going. Probably weren’t expecting you to go for lethal force.”

“So we’re still being followed?”

“Yep.”

“We can’t bring Hydra right to SHIELD’s door.”

“You’re thinking about this all backwards: if you have a problem, who do you call?”

“...SHIELD.”

“Exactly. So you’ve got a Hydra tail, so we’re going to take care of it. They’re good with that kind of thing.”

“But then Hydra will know where SHIELD is.”

“It’s our job to make sure they don’t get to tell the others. No worries.” Barton kicks back in his seat, oddly relaxed.

Steve decides that this is why Natasha told him to go to Barton as a very last resort. He is obviously terrible with plans.

 

 

 

Barton let him drive. When Steve had offered, he turned his head, displaying the device in his ear that he explained was his hearing aid. ‘It’s usually best that I don’t drive. I could, if I wasn’t still on meds, but not anymore’, he’d explained. ‘I also tend to speed a little.’

He gives directions to go down a side road towards, it seems, the edge of town. As the small city streets transition to smaller suburbs, Steve looks over towards him.

“You can ask,” Baton tells him.

“When did you lose your hearing?”

“I’m pretty sure I was born with at least partial deafness. They taught me and my brother how to sign when I was in grade school, I think. It’s gotten a bit worse with all the shooting and explosions, but I still have some hearing.”

“Does it make your job difficult?”

“I don’t know any different. It used to be that my hearing aid was connected to the com channel, so I could always hear everyone else on missions. Combining that with lip reading is usually enough.”

“And now?”

“I miss the com channel,” he admits. “Turn left there. We’re almost there.”

Steve turns as instructed, down a road that looks like it’s mostly used by a power company for the lines above them. “I was mostly deaf in one ear, until the serum.”

“I know,” Barton admits. “Coulson liked to talk about Captain America a lot. It’s impressive that you lasted so long.”

“I know,” Steve chuckles. “I was one of the lucky ones. Bucky used to have to stand on my good side, or shout a little so that I could hear him. I remember, after the serum, he kept shouting at me, forgetting that I could hear him alright.”

“It must have been weird for the both of you.”

“You guys think of me like this, but I’ve only had the serum for a few years in my memory. It’s still all pretty new for me.”

“And Barnes?”

“He was angry at first, that I’d entered the study in the first place. But he couldn’t really be angry when they saw how much healthier I am now. He was always playing at mother hen, and yelling at me when I got trouble.”

Clint’s expression turns amused. “Did you get in a lot of trouble?”

“Not a lot,” Steve defends. “A few fights every once and a while, though Bucky always made it out like I was looking for trouble everywhere.”

“So breaking into secret bases-“

“-is pretty par for the course.”

Clint grins outright. “Good to know, because this is out stop. I’ll go first, like we agreed?”  
They’re stopped on the side of the dirt road, with only trees and fields surrounding them.

There are no obvious structures, but Steve expects that SHIELD would know better than to be obvious. He has to trust that Clint has led him to the right place.

“Of course. In one hour, I’m coming in, no matter what, okay?”

“Understood. I’ll talk to Barnes, and provide a distraction for you two to get out.” He opens the passenger-side door, and walks away, into the copse of trees. Steve turns on his phone’s alarm, and musters all of his patience to wait.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry: this fic fell to the wayside somehow and I never posted the last chapter. It's kind of a period piece dedicated to a particular era of this fandom honestly. Nevertheless, here is the last part of this story.

Steve is not very good at waiting.

It would not be a surprise to anyone who knows him to find that he does not enjoy sitting on the sidelines while his friends head into danger. It’s what made him a good, if stubborn, leader back in the army. However, it was not always helpful when he really did need to wait.

His inability to wait was the reason that he had abandoned the car he and Barton had borrowed, and was already waiting in one of the storage rooms inside the base. This way, he theorized, he could still keep his promise about waiting until Barton had talked to Bucky, but be close by in case of any trouble. Trouble, of course, being the men Hydra was sending to their location any second.

Getting inside hadn’t been very difficult; the lack of vehicles in the garage implied that most of the agents were off on a mission. There were two men in the common area, playing video games that he passed, but they seemed busy.

He could hear when the agents returned from their mission, earlier than Barton had predicted. He stays in place, but his whole body is thrumming with anticipation, ready to come out at a moment’s notice. His phone flashes a silent alarm at the agreed upon time, and he slips out into the hall again. Although he doesn’t really know his way again, he’s been in enough military bases and SHIELD outposts that he can guess some parts of the layout. He’s halfway to the office – the agreed upon meeting place – when a voice starts calling out for the other agents to defend the base.

It takes a few more seconds before anyone finds him. A young man and a blonde woman are first, aiming guns at his chest without any hesitation. He puts both of his hands up.

“I am not the one you want to go after right now. Hydra agents are assembling right outside.”

Obviously weary, with the sounds of Melinda May shouting about the incoming attack behind them, they both decide that he is not their main concern, pushing past him to get to that access point. Next, a young black man and his brunette friend shoot before he can speak, but he manages to convince them to go after the real problem outside with minimal damage. He’s expecting more agents to come through when gun shots begin inside, coming at him from the turn up ahead.

“Damn it, I promised not to hurt you,” he calls out, feinting to the side and running off in the other direction to find cover. “I am not Hydra!” Whoever is shooting him seems unconcerned.

Another shot rings out, this time aimed towards the first shooter. With it comes the annoyed demand, “Stand down May. He’s not the enemy.”

He has not heard it in months, but he recognizes Bucky at once. He scrambles to his feet just as another shot rings. “I will shoot you,” Bucky promises the other shooter.

“Stand down Barnes!” The steps into view: May is, indeed, the same Melinda May who had taken Bucky. She does not seem hostile, other than the shooting: he recognizes her annoyed tone as one he’d often had when Bucky did something particularly stupid.

Steve turns with anticipation. Bucky appears from the shadows, a gun steady in his hand. His stance is the Winter Soldier; firm and immovable. But his hair is whispy at the ends, curling against his shoulders, and the ragged clothes Steve had seen in the videos was replaced by sweatpants and an ill-fitting t-shirt, exposing his metal arm. Steve does not recognize him as the Soldier or his old friend – he is something new altogether.

“Bucky-“ he whispers, shaken. He hardly knows how to feel. He decides to say the only thing he is certain of, “It’s good to see you.”

Bucky looks him over, clearly making some kind of assessment. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

He sucks in a breath, struck by the thought that his friend still doesn’t remember him. Ignoring Melinda May’s approach he asks, tentative, “Do you know me?”

“I’ve always known you,” Bucky tells him, and his voice sounds kind, as though he’s trying to reassure him. “But we’ve never met like this.”

Melinda May is holding his hands now, restraining them behind his back. He does not push her away: he strains forward, even when pushed to his hands and knees, towards Bucky. Who lets him, looking at him curiously as he helplessly tries to invade his space.

“It’s nice to meet you too. I’m-“ the cuff digs into his back painfully, “-Steve Rogers. Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” he repeats. He’s amused; Steve recognizes the pull of his brow that he always gets when he thinks Steve is being a fool. It’s so familiar he aches. “I might be. Your friend told me you’d be coming.”

“Is Barton alright?”

“He got away,” Melinda May tells him, albeit with a distinctly grudging tone. “But you’re coming in for questioning.”

“I have a lot of questions too,” Steve tells her. Then, looking again at Bucky, he asks, “Will you still be here?”

“There’s no more running,” Bucky promises. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

It’s such a sweet promise, so different than the look of horror on his face on the Hellicarrier, or the pain and tears outside of the bank. Steve gasps, as though breathing for the first time, and lets himself be dragged away.

 

They bring him down into the basement and set him down in a corner, before turning on some kind of dark, electrical grid to keep him in. It’s fancier than any of the prisons he’s even been in, but they don’t need much to keep him in. Bucky promised that he’d be here until Steve got out; he could wait a little longer for that.

It’s strange, to think of Bucky right outside. The last time he’d known where Bucky was, he had no idea what to expect. Now, he doesn’t know either, but he’s more certain of his own decision. Yes, he can wait here as long as they want.

He cannot predict the way things will work out. But, sitting on the floor, he forgets for a moment about everything else. There are no words to describe how lucky he is, and he’d wait for this forever.

After a few minutes, he notices that the sound of the barrier has changed pitch. He looks up slowly, and startles when he can see right through it. Clear to the opposite wall, he can see Bucky, looking at him.

It’s impossible to tell how long Bucky has been waiting for him, but he hardly remembers how long he’s been sitting here either. He’s been letting his mind flow through memories, and imagining all the new ones he might get to make now. But Bucky is sitting against the back wall, looking right at him, with his head cocked to the side and his hair all over the place. He can tell it hasn’t been cut since he last saw him. And although his clothes look borrowed, he has an aura of calm that Steve doesn’t recognize, from his old friend or the Winter Soldier. He can’t help feeling inadequate when compared to someone who has gone through so much, and come out like this.

Thoughts racing ahead too much, he looks up at the ceiling, trying to calm down. Tentatively, he asks, “Can you hear me?”

Bucky nods, clearly understanding, and pulls himself forward, stopping where the divide remains, invisible. His face is a confusing jumble of expressions, enough to pull at Steve’s heart. The idea that he is this close to his friend… his eyes tear up, and he can’t feel embarrassed.

“How have you been?” he asks, blinking the tears back as best as he can. “They’ve been treating you well, haven’t they?”

“They’re good. I like them.”

If Bucky likes them, Steve admits to himself, then they are probably not that bad. “Good. I was worried. I haven’t heard a lot of good things about SHIELD lately.”

“You came for me.”

Steve nods. “I always will. ‘Till the end of the line, like we promised.”

Bucky shakes his head ‘no’, hair flapping forward in front of his face. Hand twitching without meaning to, Steve wants to brush it away again. With it covering his face, Steve remembers the Soldier, mask fallen and expression unreadable. It’s better when he can see the expressions on his face, the faint affection there.

“I’m not who you remember.”

Steve wants to laugh. He’s had months to think it over, and to argue it with Sam a million times. “It’s been 2 years for me Buck. I’m not who I was, either. Sam told me once, my friend Sam. You met him. He told me that you don’t get to be the same person twice. Ever since you came back from imprisonment, I knew you were going to be different. It’s okay.”

“I killed a lot of people back then, for SHIELD,” Bucky presses, as if he needed reminding. “They told me it would help you.”

“I know.I knew back then too, but I was too afraid of what you would tell me. I’m so sorry. I failed you.”

It’s the same failure that he’s been feeling this whole time, that tries to crumble his insides. Between the nightmares of seeing him fall off that train, he remembers seeing Bucky wake up in their camp, out on the front, like he hadn’t gotten any sleep. The fight with the German scientist, and the hints from Peggy and Howard. He lets it all pass in front of him, just like he did last time.

“That was my decision,” Bucky reminds him. “Back then, I decided that protecting you was the best thing I could do. I’ll do it again, if I have to. No matter what it takes.”

“Please don’t. Please just come back with me. I want to get to know you again. No more fighting, or wars: just the two of us.”

Bucky seems to consider it, and then says in a different tone “I am a mechanic now. I am good with weapons, but hurting people makes me sick. I fix things, now.”

Although he never would have thought of it on his own, it pleases him more than he would have ever guessed. He presses Bucky for more information, and thinks about his old best friend taking him to the science expo, and the quieter man sitting in front of them. He decides he likes them both very much.

 

“They feed you yet?”

Steve had been distracted: Bucky had fallen asleep, curled up against the wall and tired from talking. He’d been telling about his project to build a robot like from some movies he liked. His words had become interspersed with yawns, then into a dozed silence. He’d contented himself with looking at his sleeping face, half dozing himself. It’s not his finest moment, that Barton can sneak up on him.

“I think they’ve forgotten about me.”

“They definitely haven’t forgotten,” Barton tells him, stepping down the stairs. He is finally carrying his bow and quiver on his back. “They just haven’t figured out what to do with you.”

“Have they been giving you trouble?”

“I’ve been keeping out of their way.”

Barton comes up all the way up to the dividing barrier, and walks right through it, sitting against the wall next to him. Rolling his eyes at his theatrics, he shoves his shoulder, and gestures towards his sleeping friend to indicate that they should be quiet.

“Bucky told me what happened. You didn’t tell me that ‘I’ll make a distraction’ actually meant confronting the man you lost two years ago. I would have suggested a less painful plan.”

“It’s no big deal. He already knew how I felt. We had a big, awkward talk about it long before the shit went down in New York.”

“I think we all assumed that you had something with Natasha…”

Barton snorts and has to cover his mouth to quiet his laugh. “Right. She’d kill me. Not saying that I didn’t try, back before we got close, but she’s not into relationships with guys. A lot of bad experiences, I think.”

Steve does not want to think about it. He knows almost nothing about her past, but he can imagine enough from the little he’s figured out. Her decision to stay away from men is one he definitely understands and approves of.

“Why are you still here?” he asks, the question suddenly occurring to him. “We can get out of here fine on our own. I already promised I won’t tell anyone about the new SHIELD.”

“Change your mind about them yet?”

“They sound like good people. And if they’re Bucky’s friends, then I trust them.”

“They’re still trying to figure a lot of stuff out, but I give them credit. Coulson’s done a good job with the improvements.”

“Are you going to stick around then?”

“God no,” Barton laughs. “They do not need me here.”

“Running again?”

“Ugh, you sound like Tasha.”

“That’s quite a compliment. What’s your excuse this time?”

“I have enough trouble on my own, thanks. I can’t add him into the mix.”

“Coward,” Steve accuses, making sure to keep his voice light so it’s not too accusing. “You should consider talking to him again; get some closure.”

“Not all of us are lucky enough to get second chances with the loves of our lives, Rogers.”

“Steve, please. And it was never like that.”

“Maybe it wasn’t. But you never know what it might be now. You guys have changed.”

He’s surprised that Barton – Clint – is the first person to call him out on it. Everyone has made jokes, but they were just that – jokes. The modern world has changed its understanding of how relationships between friends work, and the line between the romantic and the platonic is strange. He knows what Bucky was to him, back before the war, but in some ways, the feeling he gets when he looks at him now is different. He just hasn’t figured out what that means.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Cool. Good queer-talk we’ve had here. Very progressive. The TV pundits would be astonished to hear you speak so openly about homosexuality.”

“The people on TV think they know a lot about me, despite never meeting me. It’s kind of a thing in this century.”

“You have to cut them some slack: most historical figures don’t suddenly reappear 70 years later.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Clint and Steve both turn, Clint gasping rather loudly, but Bucky hasn’t moved from his position on the wall, but he’s looking at them through the gaps in his eyelashes, clearly only half awake. It’s enough to send Steve into a peal of laughter, and for Clint to half-heartedly complain that he’s being ganged up on by geriatrics.

 

“Is everyone going to come and visit me?” Steve asks as Coulson comes down the stairs. He should have been more suspicious when Clint had got up and left 10 minutes ago. 

“Probably. You’re kind of a big deal around here.”

Coulson stands where the division was. Steve had moved at some point to sit by Bucky, so that the three of them could talk together. They never said anything important, but it was nice to have a conversation with his friend again. It wasn’t the same as it used to be, but that wasn’t really a problem for him. As soon as they’d heard the door, Bucky had curled up into a ball and put his head in Steve’s lap, nudging backwards until Steve started to pet his hair. It was new, but strangely calming.

“Am I going to have to stay in here much longer? I was hoping to meet the rest of your agents.”

“I was under the impression that you weren’t SHIELD’s biggest fan.” Coulson takes something up that unfolds into a chair, which he sets up facing the two of them.

“I’m trying not to judge.”

“I can’t way we’re your biggest fans either. Leading a Hydra squadron to our secret base wasn’t the nicest thing you could have done.”

“We weren’t equipped to deal with Hydra soldiers. You and your agents are. It seemed like the logical choice.”

“Not the one I would have expected from Captain America.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

It’s not the nicest thing he could have said, but it’s often what Steve feels when people talk about Captain America like that. When he was with the Howling Commandos, those were the exact kinds of decisions that they were making every day. All of the comics and the movies were someone else’s ideas.

In the end, he does what he always does: sighs and apologizes. “I was a calculated risk, and I’m sorry. It’s been a long couple of days and, well, I’ve learned a lot about SHIELD lately, but I don’t think that you were involved in any of the stuff I’ve been hearing about. I shouldn’t be taking anything out on you.”

“Such as?”

“Ever hear of Project Marvels?”

The impassive expression that Steve has often heard as Coulson’s trademark appears, though there are hints of a frown around his eyes. “I don’t think I have.”

“It seems SHIELD was interested in altering human DNA with some alien species.”

“Aliens? The outer space kind?” Somehow, instead of sounding incredulous, Coulson sounds interested: very interested.

“We don’t know yet. Why?”

“What’s your source for all of this?”

“Why?” Steve presses.

“Because I think we have something to talk about. Call your contacts and I’ll explain everything.”

 

His cell phone is brought down for him to make the calls he needs, and an hour later Agent May appears at the top of the stairs, telling them to go to the conference room. Bucky, having stayed quiet through his phone calls, stands up first and silently leads him up through the base, and into what seems to be Coulson’s office. There, Melinda May and other female agent he does not recognize are waiting.

“-the same thing?”

They all stop speaking as soon as they Steve walk in.

“Did you have a chance to talk to your friends?”

Bucky nods at him and takes a seat by the window, more comfortable in a position where he can see everyone at once. Steve takes the single seat in the center of the room. “If you’re ready, we can call them up again now.”

A few moments later, Sam and Carol are on the screen. The two of them look around at the group assembled, Sam’s gaze lingering on Bucky in the corner. When he looks back at Steve, Steve can hardly hold back a grin.

Carol speaks first, glancing warily at the surrounding agents. “Cap, we talked to your sources, like we promised. It seems that one of them had heard about the project, before SHIELD fell.”

“What did you find?”

“That it had something to do with what they called the ‘blue alien’ projects, whatever that means.”

“Blue alien?” Coulson repeats. “Are you certain that’s what they said?”

“Yeah, she was pretty certain. Apparently every few years a SHIELD scientist would try another one of these projects. Sounded like it’s been going on for years.”

“Do you know what kinds of projects these were?”

“She was pretty unsure about the details,” Carol admits. “But they’re always highly classified. The only people who know about it are the people in charge of the testing. Our source had only heard about it because she was involved in one of them herself. She knew a few names though: Weapon X, Tahiti, Atom, and Marvels.”

For some reason, that seems to almost frighten the SHIELD agents. Coulson turns pale at the list, and the unintroduced agent looks like she’s about to start shaking.

“Atom was the old code name that General Ross gave Doctor Banner’s supersoldier project,” Coulson says, quietly. “I know that Weapon X was a project working out of Canada somewhere, but we were never told any of the details…”

“And Tahiti?”

“That was me. My study. We were testing a new drug that was supposed to help agents who had been near death – it’s how Fury kept me alive.”

“It wasn’t about making supersoldiers then?”

“I don’t know. After it failed, the symptoms were … deadly. We had to wipe the memory of everyone involved to protect their sanity.”

Carol turns slightly pale, but seems to be getting used to people telling her bad news. “The Marvels project seems to have combined the subject’s DNA with some kind of alien DNA – we think it’s the ‘blue alien’. Maybe the other projects have been working with the same stuff.”

“Trying to harness alien DNA to create superhumans,” Coulson mutters. “That does sound like SHIELD.”

The younger girl, still looking frightened, turns to her boss. “What does that mean for me? That that alien thing you saw …”

“You saw the alien?” Steve asks, astonished.

“Briefly. We were destroying the lab it was being held in. All I could see was this blue… thing that they had been harvesting.”

“What do you have to do with it?” Carol asks the girl. It’s clear what assumption she has jumped to: there may be another victim of these programs, someone who might understand her.

The girl looks between them all, obviously uncertain of how much to tell them. “We think… I took the same drugs that Coulson did, when they brought him back to life. They pushed him off the deep end a little, once he started remembering everything, but for me… nothing. I’m perfectly fine.”

“So what, you think they did something to you?” Sam asks.

“We think that she might already have some of it in her, already. That’s why she’s unaffected.” Coulson reaches out a hand and holds hers, giving her a reassuring smile. “It’s impossible to know.”

She looks defensive: ready, in case someone tries to pick some kind of fight. He knows where those reflexes come from – they are not the product of someone who has been reassured all their life. The small comforts that his mother, and Bucky, and the rest of the Barnes family gave him when people tried to question him had hardly been enough to keep him from picking every fight he could, trying to defend whatever cause he could find to prove himself. He’s had to struggle to prove that he’s human too.

Clearly, he is not the only one who has thought of this: Carol’s expression turns for the first time from guarded to soft, and comforting. “You’re not the only person who has some of this alien in them. Those scientists turned me into half of that alien too. Didn’t turn out so good though.

She ignites the familiar fire on her hand, and even through the screen its bright light is captivating. “They left me this too.”

Everyone stares at her hand, even Sam and Steve. Glancing over at Bucky, he can recognize his assessing look, the kind he used to get outside of enemy bases and before an alleyway fight began. It’s quantifying danger. He is sad that his friend cannot help looking for danger everywhere he looks.

“Does it hurt?” the girl asks softly, her voice hardly carrying across the room.

Somehow the system must pick it up, and Carol gives an almost-smirk. “Nah. It’s actually pretty cool.”

There is a lot the two can do for each other. Steve can recognize, despite only knowing him for a short time, the look Sam gets when he has a plan. So he asks him: “What do you think Sam? Want to stop by the secret SHIELD base so we can all touch base?”

“I think that we’ll take the first plane to wherever the hell you guys are. You’ll just need to send someone to pick us up.”

“I can go get them sir. Or Agent Morse,” May suggest.

“I’ll send Barton,” Coulson says instead. “If he’s up to it.”

“Sir, Barton is not our agent: we have no control over him. And we don’t know if he ever passed his piloting requalification after his-“

“I know it hurts to admit it, but Barton is a better pilot than any of us even if he was shot and bleeding out. If he’s here, then we should take advantage of it.”

“I can’t agree with this.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to.”

“Well you go and tell him,” she snaps. “Because I sure won’t.”

“I don’t have to. He’s been here the whole time.” Gesturing with a nod, be points to an upper corner of the ventilation system. Perched on a large steel pipe is a blank faced Clint Barton, who nods back to them all. Somehow, Coulson was the only person who had noticed him there, though the lack of surprise in Bucky’s expression indicates that he might have known all along as well. It wouldn’t be surprising.

“How soon can you be ready?” Coulson asks him calmly, as though their last argument hadn’t happened.

“I can leave now sir.”

“Good. We’ll have a plane ready for takeoff for you in the hanger. May,” he gives her a pointed look, “tell Mack to ready the plane.”

“Yes sir,” she says with gritted teeth, and leaves the room. After a pause, Sam and Carol end the video call, and the rest of them stand in silence.  
-  
“So that was a pretty dick move,” Coulson’s agent tells him, adding a sarcastic, “Sir.”

Coulson stands up and makes his way to his desk, away from the conversation. “Please. Skye. It’s the right call. He’s best suited for the job.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to take advantage of the fact that he’d listen to you. You knew there was no way he’d say ‘no’, and now you don’t have to feel guilty knowing he’s hanging around.”

“He has free will,” Coulson reminds her peevishly. He sounds less than professional. “He can do or not do whatever he wants. And if he doesn’t want to stay here after, that’s his call too.”

“That’s what this is about,” Steve interrupts, rather amused. “You think he chose to stay away?”

“He says that he’s known that I’m alive the entire time. If he wanted to talk to me, there’s a long time for him to have done it already.”

“I don’t know sir,” Steve says, adding the same mocking edge the others had, “but from what he told me, he’s still in pretty bad shape. He probably thought that he’d be a liability.”

“I’m not talking about as an agent, I mean as a-… friend.”

Understanding seems to dawn on Skye. “You’re totally into him. That’s why you’re being so weird about this. I thought you had a girlfriend already, before you died.”

“Our relationship wasn’t as rosy as Audrey made it seem,” he admits, turning faintly red with embarrassment. “We’d already separated before the battle; Clint had told me how he felt, and I was-,”

“-Trying to make the right choice,” Steve finishes.

“I don’t think he knows that,” Skye tells him, now serious. “I think he thinks you rejected him.”

“I will deal with this when he gets back, okay? For now, how about you escort them back to Barnes’s quarters?”

She rolls her eyes, but makes for the door, pausing for Steve and Bucky to follow, and shuts the door behind them.

“I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this drama,” she tells Steve as they walk. “Bucky can tell you that we’re not usually like this.”

“No need to apologize. It sounds like you guys have already been through a lot.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy here. And Bucky here brought some of that himself, not that we blame him.”

“I might be leaving soon,” Bucky tells her. He sounds apologetic, and unenthusiastic. “When we finish this mission.”

“It’s not a mission, Buck. We’re just helping out a friend,” Steve reminds him.

He shrugs, as though it makes little difference to him. They come to a row of doors, each with numbers on them. Skye nods before going back towards where they’d come from, while Bucky pushes open what is apparently the door to his room. It’s small, with only a bed and a side table beside it. On that table are bits of machine parts, and a half assembled gun. The only other item in the room is a tablet computer, propped against the wall.

“This is mine,” Bucky explains, sitting on the bed. He shifts to the side, making room for them both.

“It’s nice. Is this stuff for your robot?” Steve gestures to the parts on the table.

“Trying to orient the wheels properly. Make sure that the weight is evenly distributed.”

“That’s impressive. I could never do that,” Steve admits. “I’ve never been very good with things like that.”

“I used to have to fix your bike for you.”

A flare of warmth surges in his chest, and Steve has to repress the urge to grin again. Having someone know him, even a little, and remembering him as something other than Captain America – he can hardly quash the feeling of excitement. He feels more human already.

“You were always good with your hands.”

A tick appears at the corner of Bucky’s mouth, wavering as he turns away to hide some expression. After a moment of surprise, Steve blushes at how he sounded: Bucky is laughing at him.

“Shut up. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“My hands are good with a lot of things,” Bucky agrees, tone solemn but the tick in his mouth still there, like he’s on the verge of a grin. While he remembers being proud when he got Bucky to laugh, he can’t remember his smile ever feeling as infectious as this tiny grin.  
-  
Sam and Carol arrive a few hours later, time which Steve and Bucky have spent in the base’s garage. There, Steve met Bucky’s friends: Fitz – who he had mentioned – was a young scientist, and Mack, who was the base’s other mechanic. The two of them greeted him as Bucky’s friend, and not Captain America, which was enough to make Steve like them at once. The two of them then sit in the garage, where Bucky looks at something they had been working on, and Steve steals a piece of drafting paper and a pen to draw. It has been a few weeks since he’s had the chance to draw, so he takes advantage of this opportunity to sketch Bucky as he works.

“Looks like it’s going well here,” Sam observes when he comes in to find them.

“Sam.” He hugs his friend, patting him on the back. “Bucky, this is my friend Sam.”

“We’ve met,” Sam added.

“I kicked you off a hellicarrier,” Bucky agreed. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. You doing alright?”

“I’ve been worse.”

“That’s not saying much.”

Bucky’s mouth tips into his new, half-smile. Although it is not the same as the wide one he’d had in the 40s, Steve is growing rather fond of it.

“Barton wanted to talk to you,” Sam tells him. “Didn’t say what for.”

Nodding, Bucky takes his long sleeved shirt off the toolbox and slips it on as he walks away. Steve is unable to help himself, and stops drawing to watch him go.

“Dude, you are so gone on him.”

“Shut up,” Steve protests, swatting him.

“You are! I should have guessed: who's got more ‘similar life experiences’ than another soldier put on ice for most of a century? And he’s not bad to look at either.”

“You and Natasha need to stop talking. At all.”

“Says the guy who was ogling the man working topless.”

“Sometimes they get a crowd,” Fitz interjects, reminding them at they are not alone. “He and Mack, working together.”

“I can see that,” Sam agrees. “Since this idiot won’t introduce me, I’ll do it myself: name’s Sam Wilson.”

“I’m Mack, and he’s Fitz.” Mack gestures to Fitz from his position half under a car. “Nice to meet you.”

“If you two don’t mind, I’m going to take Cap here away for a moment. Our other friend is talking to your girl Skye back in the kitchen.”

They make their way to the kitchen, relying on Steve’s memory to find their way around the complicated base. They find the two women talking by the coffee maker. After only a few minutes, Carol already looks calmer than she has the entire time Steve has known her. He hadn’t even noticed how run ragged she had looked, but seeing her with her jacket tossed to the side and leaning back, she looks her age.

“Saw your boy pass through: quite an improvement since the last time I saw him.”

“He’s been doing well,” Steve agrees, pouring himself a cup of coffee for himself. Although the caffeine does nothing for him, he enjoys the warmth of holding the cup in his hands. The hot black coffee that Sam drinks is probably less for taste, and more for survival. “He says that he really likes it here.”

“We’ll be sorry to see him go,” Skye tells them, sincere.

“I don’t know if we’re leaving just yet. He’s been doing really well here with all of you, and it seems like you guys could use some help.”

“You’re sticking around?” Sam asks. His tone is not as surprised as Steve had expected.

“Yeah. It’s the safest place for Bucky to keep up his recovery.”

Everyone in the room nods their assent. Carol and Skye break off into their side conversation that Steve purposefully does not hear, focusing on the warm drink in his hand. Coffee tastes so strange in this century, but he’s growing fond of it too. He feels very pleased with everything. 

Bucky walks into the room a few minutes later, making a beeline for Steve and his cup of coffee. Taking the coffee in one hand, he stands right next to him and sags into his side, sipping his drink with almost inaudible, pleased sounds.

“Hey, that was mine,” Steve protests, trying to pretend he’s not smiling again.

Bucky raises both eyebrows and takes a deliberately loud sip. At the same time, Coulson walks into the room, followed immediately by Clint. It’s clear in an instant that the two of them have had some kind of talk: instead of circling around each other, keeping distance between them, Clint follows Coulson’s pace exactly, and stops at his right side as though he’s done it a million times. It reminds Steve of the way that Natasha and Hill had seemed in sync with Fury, when he’d been in charge, or how Stark always seemed to orbit Doctor Banner when he spoke. It came from familiarity.

Coulson takes two mugs down and pours water into the hot water kettle on the stove. Clint takes the empty cup and puts coffee into it, adding sugar and cream. As he stirred, Coulson took a bag of tea from the upper cabinet and dropped it into the cup. Then, the two swapped.

“That was adorable,” Skye teases.

“Habit,” Coulson admits. “I never used to get my own coffee.”

The water hisses, and Clint pours his water. He hops up onto the counter behind Coulson, and surveys them with bored eyes. “Everyone friends now?”

“Seems like it. Is it alright if me and Bucky stick around here for a little while longer?” Steve asks, “Just until he’s ready to head out.”

Bucky nudges him with his hip, getting his attention to give him a thankful look. In that, Steve had apparently guessed properly.

“We’d love to have you Captain. Barton says that one of your sources has agreed to a trade of information, so I’m guessing we’ll be spending the next few weeks using that to identify some more Hydra bases. Probably not very exciting for you.”

“I’ll be happy to help you out. And please, call me Steve.”

“Alright Steve,” he agrees. His calm demeanor is ruined by Clint’s too loud snicker and muffled laughter.

“I’ll stay here too,” Carol adds, stepping forward. “I was in the Air Force, before I had to be taken on leave, and I promise I-“

“There’s no need to read me your resume. We can really use you on our team.”

Carol smiles, almost bashful, and stepping back while Skye grins at her.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Unlike these two, I have an actual job back in DC. But if you ever need any help…”

“We’ll call you in. It’ll be nice to know we have the Falcon on our side.”

“Excuse me,” a voice says from the other side of the common area. Fitz waves his hand to get their attention. “I don’t know what is happening, but can we borrow Bucky? I can’t get my hands to work.”

Bucky follows him into the other room, coffee in hand. Tipping his head, Steve waves and follows him out to watch. It’s still early, and he’s not quite ready to let Bucky out of his sight for too long just yet.

 

The new SHIELD feels different than the old one did.

It is probably a very good thing, Steve admits to himself as he suits up. Coulson is speaking to the other members of the team, speaking to each one quietly to go over their orders and the mission parameters. Each one has his full attention. When he comes over to Steve, he has the same calm, precise expression. Despite all of Clint’s joking, Coulson has yet to treat him any differently than the others. The only real sign that Coulson is a Captain America fan, other than the replica shield in his office, is the dazed look he gets any time Steve calls him ‘Phil’. It hasn’t worn off yet, so he’s saving that for when he’s being stubborn.

Clint is a different person. He feels like he only met this man for a few seconds, during the Battle of New York, before everything went to Hell. Clint, it seems, spends all of his time in Coulson’s office, hiding in corners and, presumably, pestering Coulson with his constant, sarcastic chatter. It’s startling to go into the office, and begin talking to the director, only for Clint to jump in with some remark when you’re least expecting it. The effect is not unlike the occasional projectiles he throws at people to remind them to look at him when they speak.

Bucky stands with Fitz in the back of the plane, followed by a short, prototype robot. It makes a mechanical chirping noise at him, which he answers with inaudible murmurs and pats to the head. Neither Fitz nor Mack can explain how his robot has developed the personality of a finicky cat, but it is considered a success anyways.

When Steve comes over, Koshka beeps at him, and bumps his feet, like a kitten looking for attention. Bucky looks up and says something in Russian to her – Steve suspects it is so the others cannot tell he is babying the thing.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. Bucky had had a nightmare that night, and he’d heard him going into the common room and turning on the television at some early hour of the morning.

“Tired.”

Of course, he does not always want to answer Steve’s questions. Sam is always reminding him that healing takes time, and that no one is helped when he pushes too hard. It is hard to remember, when he’s sitting in his bed at night, wanting to go out and say something.

“Try to get some rest today, alright? We should be back in a couple of hours.”

“I will. When you get back.”

He says it so matter of factly, and perhaps for him it really is that simple. A few times, when Steve has been unable to keep away, he’d gone into Bucky’s room and woken him up from his nightmares, waiting with him for the panicking to quiet again. And once or twice, Bucky had just pulled him into bed with him, curling up behind him and falling back to sleep. They had slept in the same bed as kids before, but with a kind of innocence he remembers so much of their old friendship with. Now, he ends up feeling too warm and smitten to think it’s innocent.

So he blushes, as bad as he ever did when Peggy had said something even a little flirtatious to him, and nods. It is good that Clint or Natasha cannot see him.

“Are you ready, Captain?”

May is the only one who calls him ‘Captain’ as if it’s a title. Coulson has promised him that she means it as a sign of respect, but Steve is pretty sure that she does it because she knows that it bugs him. He will not get so low as to calling her ‘Ma’am’ in retaliation, but he has thought about it a few times.

“To jump out of a plane? I’m always ready.”

Triplett rolls his eyes when he comes to stand next to him. He, like Sam and Natasha and now Clint, refuses to take Steve seriously.

“Entering the drop zone now.”

Glancing backwards, he sees Bucky is watching them leave. He gives him a smirk, and a head tilt as the cargo door opens, right before he drops out of the plane with the rest of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Criticisms and suggestions are very much appreciated. Next chapter posted on Thursday


End file.
